Chávez's personal nurse, multi-million dollar road to extradition

[Blexfraptor]

He looked after the Venezuelan ex-president on his deathbed, but could be extradited by Spain.

This is a story that is often repeated with the closest collaborators of the late President Hugo Chávez since his anointed, today President Nicolás Maduro, ascended to power.

Claudia Patricia Díaz Guillén, who was part of the medical corps that accompanied the Bolivarian leader during the cancer that took his life, is on track to be extradited from Spain to Venezuela for an accusation of money laundering.

She says that behind everything there is a political persecution of the Maduro regime because she refused to make him sign a series of documents to the sick president, but the Venezuelan justice assures that in an investigation of the alleged Panama Papers, she and her husband, Adrián José Velásquez, who was the security chief of the late president, was helped by the Mossack Fonseca law firm to "shield" an undeclared fortune, according to Venezuela's Attorney General, Tarek Saab, on Twitter on April 10.

In another message, Saab recalled that in 2016 the Venezuelan Prosecutor's Office conducted raids on the properties of the Velásquez Figueroa family and that at that time "they were detected innumerable techniques of legitimization of capital and illicit enrichment that forces them to appear before the competent authorities of Venezuela".

 

The question is how a nurse ended up amassing a fortune of such magnitude as to be hidden in Panama?

The reason is that Díaz Guillén, as well as Chávez's nurse, was for two years treasurer of the Venezuelan government as head of the National Fund for National Development (Fonden). But one month after Chávez's death, on March 5, 2013, it was dismissed. Shortly after he left Venezuela.

His lawyer, Ismael Oliver, said that there are "reasonable grounds for believing political persecution" and "serious doubts" about the validity of the claim, as the arrest warrant that led to the arrest of the nurse in Spain was canceled months later by an instance judicial system, without Venezuela communicating it.

That is why he believes that the Venezuelan authorities have tried to deceive the Spanish Justice, with bankruptcy of the principle of mutual trust between States. The lawyer argued that the case opened against his client is based on an investigation by the Bolivarian Intelligence Service (Sebin), "an organ that is sanctioned and questioned," he said, "by all international human rights organizations."

The presiding judge studying the case, Alfonso Guevara, warned the lawyer that in no case can the judges enter the merits of the claim, noting that the Spanish Council of Ministers authorized processing.

The Office of the Prosecutor believes, for its part, that the necessary requirements are met to accept the extradition, which the hearing will resolve in the coming days.

 

It is a search for 'scapegoats' by the Venezuelan regime to distract people from the misery the people are living

Díaz Guillén was arrested in Madrid last April with her husband, who is also wanted by Venezuela for the same crimes, although his extradition is processed in a separate proceeding.

The marriage was made available to the Spanish judge Fernando Andreu, who released them with the prohibition of leaving Madrid while deciding on their delivery.

Following the arrest of these two collaborators of Chavez, his lawyer issued a statement in which attributed the claim of Venezuela to the search for "scapegoats" by the Venezuelan regime "to distract people from the misery that is living the town".