On July 18, convicted triple murderer Dahud Hanid Ortiz was released from a thirty year prison sentence in Venezuela as part of a prisoner swap.
Ortiz was subsequently given a flight back to the United States, and is apparently in Orlando, Florida. Governor Ron DeSantis, who has claimed to be strong against crime, has not explained why someone convicted of homicide is freely living in his state.
Some Trump officials knew about Ortiz’s criminal record before his release, implying some intent behind this unexplained decision. The decision does not stem from the Biden administration, which decided not to let him back into the United States in 2023.
In 2016, Ortiz murdered murdered two women in Spain and a man he mistook as Victor Salas, who he accused of having an affair with his wife. He fled to Germany, then to Venezuela. Spain demanded his extradition back to the country, but the Venezuelan Constitution bars the extradition of its citizens (Ortiz is a dual Venezuelan-American citizen). He was tried there instead, receiving a thirty year sentence for his crimes.
The real Victor Salas now fears for his life.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio erroneously declared that, “Every wrongfully detained American in Venezuela is now free and back in our homeland.” Ortiz was never declared wrongfully detained. The release of Ortiz undermines the original mission of the prisoner swap, which was to free American citizens and residents who were wrongfully detained by Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro, who used the arrests as leverage against the United States.
