Everyone sleep with one eye open tonight – Dahud Hanid Ortiz is on the loose thanks to Trump.
Dahud Hanid Ortiz, who stabbed three people to death in 2016, was one of ten people released from prison in Venezuela AT THE REQUEST OF THE TRUMP GOVERNMENT and returned to the US. His current whereabouts are unknown.
One of the 10 Americans released from Venezuela in a prisoner swap last week was convicted of killing three people in Spain and was serving a 30-year sentence in a Venezuelan prison before his release, Spanish and Venezuelan officials told ABC News.
Dahud Hanid Ortiz, 54, was convicted in Venezuela of killing three people in a Madrid law office in 2016, according to the Spanish Interior Ministry and the Venezuelan vice president’s office.
Spanish authorities said Ortiz stabbed to death two female employees and a client of the law firm in June 2016. Authorities said Ortiz was looking for the lawyer who ran the office, who was away at the time.
The Venezuelan government opted to try Ortiz, an American-Venezuelan dual national, in Venezuela rather than fulfill an extradition request form Spain because Venezuela’s constitution prohibits the extradition of Venezuelan-born citizens.
Speaking on Venezuelan TV on Thursday, Venezuela’s Justice Minister Diosdado Cabello said U.S. officials were told about Ortiz’s conviction but said they still wanted him released.
The U.S. was aware of Ortiz’ past but made the decision to bring him out in the swap anyway, according to a U.S. official familiar with the matter.
Ortiz served in the U.S. Army for about 17 years as an enlisted soldier, starting in 1995, and then served more than four years as an officer, an Army spokesperson said. He deployed to Kuwait and Iraq and left the Army in October 2015, nine months before the murders were committed.
A defense official said Ortiz was court-martialed “and dismissed from the Army” in 2015.
Upon his return to the US with a group of ten, Ortiz was released and the US government is not aware of his current whereabouts.