Spain extradites Venezuela's ex-spy chief to US

Venezuela's former head of military intelligence, Hugo Carvajal, is on his way to the United States where he faces charges of drug trafficking.

He is accused of forming part of a drug-smuggling organisation dubbed the Cartel of the Suns, which prosecutors say is made up of high-ranking members of the Venezuelan military, according to BBC.

Prosecutors accuse the 63-year-old of having used his position as chief of military intelligence to protect shipments of cocaine from Venezuela bound for the US.

Carvajal was a close ally of the late Venezuelan president, Hugo Chávez, and is thought to hold key information about his government and that of Chávez's successor, Nicolás Maduro.

He also allegedly provided weapons for the FARC, a Colombian Marxist rebel group which reportedly has camps in neighbouring Venezuela.

Carvajal has denied any wrongdoing and waged a long and ultimately unsuccessful legal battle against his extradition to the US.

As head of military counter-intelligence from 2004 to 2011, he was one of the most powerful men in Venezuela and a confidant of the president at the time, Hugo Chávez.

His legal troubles date back to 2011 when a US court first indicted him on drug trafficking charges.

For years, he managed to avoid extradition to the US.

In 2014, he was arrested at the request of the US state department on the Dutch Caribbean island of Aruba, where he had been sent as Venezuela's consul general.

But his arrest was ruled illegal because he held a diplomatic passport and he was given a hero's welcome by Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro upon his return to Caracas.

Five years later, however, he turned against President Maduro and backed opposition leader Juan Guaidó when the latter declared himself interim president.

Carvajal urged the military to back Guaidó and was forced to flee Venezuela when the armed forces remained loyal to President Maduro.

He managed to escape by boat to the Dominican Republic and settled in Spain.

There, he was arrested at the request of the US authorities. But he would not stay in custody for long before a Spanish court rejected the US's extradition request and released him.

A cat-and-mouse game with the police forces of several nations followed, lasting several years.

When police officers came to re-arrest him after a higher court had overturned the decision to release him, Carvajal vanished.

He was finally tracked down to a flat in Madrid after he had been in hiding for two years.

Police said he had avoided leaving the apartment, even disguising himself by wearing a wig and a fake moustache when he went out on the balcony to smoke.

More legal battles followed in which he tried to avoid being extradited to the US and repeatedly demanded being allowed to leave custody.

But after the European Court of Human Rights denied a request by Carvajal to stop Spain from extraditing him, his fate was sealed and Interpol was ordered to take him to the US.