AP and Prensa Latina
The newspaper La Jornada
Sunday, August 4, 2024, p. 17
La Paz, Bolivia – The Bolivian justice system will consider a request for extradition of a former head of the anti-drug force accused of protecting mafias that trafficked cocaine to the United States. He is currently in a La Paz jail before his trial, it was reported yesterday.
As a first step, a magistrate will process the request of the American justice system next week preventive detention for extradition purposes of Colonel Maximiliano Dávila, said the president of the Supreme Court of Justice, Ernesto Jaimes.
Dávila was director of the Special Force to Fight Drug Trafficking (FELCN) during the government of Evo Morales (2006-2019) and has been detained since February of last year following accusations related to drug trafficking.
The US embassy in La Paz requested Dávila’s arrest for extradition several months ago, but the judiciary had not yet made a statement.
We will proceed accordingly.Jaimes stressed regarding the steps to be taken until Washington provides the reasons for its extradition request. In the meantime, Dávila must remain in preventive detention, the magistrate specified.
Bolivian justice is investigating Dávila for allegedly having given protection to a drug dealer Bolivian who was extradited by Brazil two years ago.
In the past decade, at least five former anti-drug police chiefs have been accused and investigated for protecting the underworld, although there are no known convictions in Bolivia against former high-ranking officers. If Dávila is extradited, he would be the second Bolivian anti-drug chief to face trial in the United States for ties to drug trafficking.
In 2011, General René Sanabria was arrested in Panama by US agents and extradited. He served a nine-year sentence in that country for cocaine trafficking.
After being commander of the anti-drug force, Sanabria became an anti-drug adviser to the Morales government in 2022 when he was arrested. In 2021, Sanabria was released by the United States after serving his sentence.