Latest news with #HanidOrtiz
NZ Herald
17 hours ago
- Politics
- NZ Herald
The case of Dahud Hanid Ortiz, a US-Venezuelan citizen brought home in Trump's prisoner swap
'The US has been completely silent, not giving information to anyone,' Victor Joel Salas Covenas, a lawyer in Spain who was targeted by Hanid Ortiz in the 2016 plot, told the Washington Post today. 'At this moment, no one knows Dahud's whereabouts. So the fear is real, isn't it? Of course.' Hanid Ortiz, 54, had been left behind on previous swaps brokered by both the Trump and Biden administrations, said a US official with knowledge of internal discussions in the wake of his release. The Administration's suspected failure to properly vet Hanid Ortiz before allowing him to board the Gulfstream jet that left Caracas for Texas on July 18 also has caused a rift within the State Department, which led the negotiations central to last week's prisoner swap. The US official acknowledged that Hanid Ortiz's inclusion in the release was 'ruffling a lot of feathers' at the department because the dual US-Venezuelan citizen was never on lists of Americans whom the Trump Administration sought from Venezuelan authorities. 'It seems like no one was checking closely,' said the official. Spokespeople for the State Department and White House have cited 'privacy reasons' for refusing to address the growing maelstrom surrounding Hanid Ortiz's release. In response to questions, Administration officials issued a statement saying, 'The US had the opportunity to secure the release of all Americans detained in Venezuela, many of whom reported being subjected to torture and other harsh conditions'. Diosdado Cabello, Venezuela's Interior Minister, said yesterday on his weekly broadcast that the Venezuelan Government had warned US officials at the airport that they were 'taking away a convicted murderer'. 'The US defended their murderer and asked for him to be included,' Cabello alleged. Efforts to speak with Hanid Ortiz's family in the US have been unsuccessful. The questions surrounding Hanid Ortiz have overshadowed what otherwise was seen in Washington as a significant foreign policy win by the Administration. He was among a group of 10 US citizens and permanent residents released by Venezuela. The deal also sent to Venezuela more than 250 Venezuelan nationals who had been deported by the US to a megaprison in El Salvador as part of Trump's aggressive immigration crackdown. The Trump Administration has not identified the Americans released in the deal, though it has acknowledged that eight of the 10 had been classified as 'wrongfully detained' by the State Department. That designation enables use of government resources to help free US people it believes should not be imprisoned abroad. Those classified as 'wrongfully detained' are offered support services upon their return at the Brooke Army Medical Centre in San Antonio. Two US officials said that Hanid Ortiz was not offered these services. And that's where the trail runs cold. Hanid Ortiz was last seen publicly as he waved to the news media in San Antonio after arriving with the other released prisoners. His presence among the group was first detected by media outlets in Spain. He did not get off the plane during a brief stop in El Salvador, said the US official. There, some of the other prisoners met with the country's President, Nayib Bukele, a key Trump ally, this person said. The situation is seen as pressing, given the nature of the crimes for which Hanid Ortiz was convicted, which were detailed in a Venezuelan court last year. According to court records, Hanid Ortiz had been living in Germany when he came to suspect his wife was having a relationship with Salas Covenas, the lawyer in Madrid. The court found that Hanid Ortiz travelled to Spain to take revenge on the lawyer, concealing his visit by recruiting a friend to pretend to be him at home so he had an alibi. When he arrived at Salas Covenas' law office, Hanid Ortiz asked two employees to contact the lawyer, saying he was exploring a lucrative business deal, court records show. The two women were killed with a knife and a blunt object before the slaying of a man who arrived at the law office to pick up some documents, an apparent instance of mistaken identity, the court records say. The court found that Hanid Ortiz then set fire to the law office in a bid to hide the crime. It was his accomplice in Germany who revealed the plot to authorities, court records say. The court documents also show that Hanid Ortiz admitted to the crime in emails to his sister-in-law. 'I did horrible things without wanting to, or whatever. Believe me, people lose their minds - I did,' he wrote in one email contained in the court records documenting his prosecution and conviction. Hanid Ortiz was arrested after fleeing to Venezuela in 2018, court records show. He was in possession of three national identity cards, one in his name and two bearing other names, according to the court records. Venezuela's constitution bars extradition of citizens, so instead he was tried in a Venezuelan court with Spanish and German officials supplying evidence. He was convicted and sentenced last year. Though born in Venezuela, court records show that Hanid Ortiz served in the US Army for more than 17 years and became a US citizen. He moved with the Army to Germany, where court documents show he was court-martialled and convicted of using a fraudulent address in New York City to claim housing allowances for his family, who had moved with him overseas. His release back to the US has caught senior government officials in Spain and Germany completely caught off guard, according to the US official familiar with discussions about Hanid Ortiz occurring at the State Department. The Spanish and German embassies declined to comment. The US generally does not extradite its own citizens to face crimes in foreign nations. Salas Covenas, the Spanish lawyer, said he was first contacted on Monday by German police. They told him Hanid Ortiz was at a military base in Texas and that it was 'very likely he would be released', Salas Covenas said. 'The only thing we know for sure is that he got off the plane; a camera caught him laughing,' he added. 'Obviously, he is mocking the entire American, European and Venezuelan judicial systems.'
New York Times
21 hours ago
- Politics
- New York Times
Convicted Murderer Released by Trump From Venezuelan Prison Is Free in U.S.
He killed three people in Spain and fled to Venezuela, where he was sentenced to 30 years in prison, court documents show. Then last week, the Trump administration negotiated his release as part of a large prisoner swap, and he arrived on American soil. Now, the convict, Dahud Hanid Ortiz, 54, a U.S. Army veteran, is free in the United States, according to two people with knowledge of the case. One said he was in Orlando, Fla. When the Americans put Mr. Hanid Ortiz on a plane on Friday back to the United States, at least some people in the Trump administration knew of his criminal past, according to third person. Mr. Hanid Ortiz was among 10 Americans and U.S. legal permanent residents extracted by the United States from detention in Venezuela on Friday. In exchange, the United States agreed to allow the release of 252 Venezuelan men it had sent to a maximum-security prison in El Salvador. The Trump administration claimed all the men were members of the Tren de Aragua gang and had to be removed to protect the security of Americans. President Trump had used a wartime power, the Alien Enemies Act, to expel them. His administration provided little evidence to back its claim that they were all criminals. Mr. Hanid Ortiz's crimes and conviction had been documented in the news media and in public court records for years before his release. In 2023, officials in the Biden administration who had learned of his detention in Venezuela decided not to take him as part of a different prisoner swap, according to a former U.S. official. The official said that the Spanish authorities had asked the United States to send him to Spain, but that Spanish officials ultimately decided against this — and the Department of Justice decided it didn't want him in the United States. The decision by the Trump administration to facilitate Mr. Hanid Ortiz's release from the Venezuelan prison has elicited anger and fear among relatives of his victims — and a man court records say he had intended to kill but who, ultimately, survived. Mr. Hanid Ortiz's crimes took place in 2016 in Madrid, according to Venezuelan court documents, when he visited the office of a lawyer, Victor Salas, who he believed was having a relationship with his wife. He killed two women there, as well as a man he mistook for Mr. Salas. He fled to Germany and then to Venezuela. Spain sought the extradition of Mr. Salas, but the Venezuelan Constitution does not allow the extradition of its citizens, and he was tried instead in Venezuela. It is unclear if Mr. Hanid Ortiz can now be extradited to Spain, since he has already been tried and convicted in Venezuela and served some prison time. The Spanish prosecutor's office has confirmed Mr. Hanid Ortiz's conviction and release by the Venezuelan authorities, but declined on Thursday to comment further. Mr. Hanid Ortiz, a dual Venezuelan American citizen, served 19 years in the Army and was awarded a Purple Heart for his service in Iraq. He suffered multiple physical and mental injuries as a result of his military service, according to an Army court document, and then was forced out of the military after pleading guilty to fraud and larceny. This week, Mr. Salas said in an interview that when he heard Mr. Hanid Ortiz had been released, he immediately feared for his life. 'If this was an omission, please make amends,' he said, directing his message to Secretary of State Marco Rubio. 'Because it not only endangers me, but all Americans, because they are faced with a murderer who killed three innocent people without any qualms.' José Bautista contributed reporting from Madrid, and Michael Crowley from Washington.
New York Times
a day ago
- Politics
- New York Times
With a Single Image, U.S. Deportation Narrative Is Turned on Its Head
'No one will ever forgive me.' Those were the words Dahud Hanid Ortiz wrote in an email to an in-law after he barged into the office of a lawyer he believed was having an affair with his wife and brutally killed three people, the authorities say. He was sentenced to 30 years in prison for the crime. But forgiven or not, a beaming Mr. Hanid Ortiz appears in a photo released by the State Department of 10 Americans and U.S. permanent residents newly freed from a Venezuelan prison as part of a prisoner swap. At the time of the exchange, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the prisoners had been 'wrongfully detained' in Venezuela. But Mr. Hanid Ortiz has been less generous in his self-assessment, at least when it comes to his actions in Madrid, almost a decade ago. 'I am responsible for everything,' he wrote in the email to his wife's sister, the authorities in Spain said when they were seeking his extradition from Venezuela, where Mr. Hanid Ortiz, a dual U.S.-Venezuelan citizen, had fled. The killings took place in 2016. Mr. Hanid Ortiz arrived at the lawyer's office in search of a man he thought was having an affair with his wife, the Spanish authorities say. But he killed the wrong man, beating him to death along with a woman who was also in the office. He fatally stabbed another woman there. 'I did terrible things,' Mr. Hanid Ortiz, a U.S. Army veteran who was awarded a Purple Heart for injuries sustained in Iraq, said in the email. He said, 'I lost my head.' How Mr. Hanid Ortiz came to be on the plane with the other free Americans, at least some of whom had been seized by the Venezuelan government as bargaining chips, is uncertain. President Trump is better known for his vows to expel ostensible criminals from the United States, not repatriate them. The image of a convicted killer on a plane en route from Venezuela, surrounded by cheerful people waving American flags, is at best problematic for the White House. 'That runs counter to Trump's message that he's trying to purge this country of immigrants who are violent criminals,' said Jennifer Stromer-Galley, a professor at the Syracuse University's School of Information Studies. The State Department did not respond to questions about why the administration had decided to include Mr. Hanid Ortiz in the prisoner swap. It has also not said whether he is now a free man. Parin Behrooz and Julie Turkewitz contributed reporting.
Miami Herald
2 days ago
- Politics
- Miami Herald
American Convicted of Murder Is Freed by Trump From Venezuela Prison
When the State Department secured the release of 10 Americans and permanent legal residents from a Venezuela prison last week, Secretary of State Marco Rubio hailed the effort as part of an effort to safeguard the well-being of Americans unjustly held abroad. But one of the men released from the prison, an American Venezuelan dual national named Dahud Hanid Ortiz, had been convicted in Venezuela for the murder of three people in Spain in 2016, according to an official at the prosecutor's office in Madrid. The official asked not to be identified speaking publicly about the case. Hanid Ortiz was sentenced in 2023 to 30 years in prison for a triple homicide committed in Madrid in 2016, according to Venezuelan court documents and Spanish news media coverage, which also indicate that Spain had tried to extradite him. The Venezuelan Constitution prohibits the extradition of Venezuelan citizens, leading Hanid Ortiz to be tried inside Venezuela, which allows Venezuelans to be tried for crimes committed outside the country. Two other people with knowledge of the case who were not authorized to speak publicly about the matter also confirmed Hanid Ortiz's conviction and extraction from Venezuela by U.S. authorities. Representatives from the State Department did not immediately respond to questions about why Hanid Ortiz was released and whether he was allowed to go free once he arrived in the United States. The killings of the three people took place in the Usera neighborhood of Madrid, according to the court documents. This article originally appeared in The New York Times. Copyright 2025
