The U.S. State Department is not commenting on why a man convicted of murdering three people in Madrid was among the 10 U.S. citizens released by Venezuela last week as part of a prisoner exchange.
Dahud Hanid Ortiz, a U.S. veteran who served in Iraq, was convicted in absentia in Spain of killing two Cuban women and an Ecuadorian man in 2016.
Ortiz, who is a Venezuelan-born U.S. citizen, fled to the South American country after committing the crime. Venezuela’s government rejected Spain’s extradition request because its constitution does not allow the extradition of its citizens. Instead, Ortiz was tried in Venezuela.
A State Department spokesperson wrote in an emailed statement to NBC News that “the United States 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. For privacy reasons, I won’t get into the details of any specific case.”
The Venezuelan government last week released the 10 Americans, along with Venezuelan political prisoners, in exchange for more than 250 Venezuelan migrants the Trump administration had sent to a notorious megaprison in El Salvador in March. The three-country deal involved the governments of Nicolas Maduro in Venezuela, Nayib Bukele in El Salvador and President Donald Trump.
“Every wrongfully detained American in Venezuela is now free and back in our homeland,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in a statement last week.
Two photos released by the State Department on Friday show the 10 freed Americans, including Ortiz, holding an American flag.
Ortiz was awarded a Purple Heart and was dishonorably discharged after making a false official statement and larceny, among other charges.
Ortiz was married to a German woman he met while stationed at the U.S. base in Schweinfurt, according to Spanish newspaper El País. They later separated and she developed a relationship with a lawyer in Madrid. Ortiz is accused of showing up at the law office and kill three of its employees. The lawyer with whom Ortiz’s wife was reportedly having a relationship with was not at the office at the time.
