“Delay in extradition process” left no other option
Portuguese justice has suffered another remarkable episode of self-harm: after the arrest of a ‘mega drug trafficker’ in the Azores two summers ago – smuggling over a ton of cocaine to the mainland – his extradition to Spain to serve a jail sentence ran foul of judicial time limits. The Supreme Court of Justice “had no other option but to release him” earlier this month for what by this time was “illegal imprisonment” – and the man (Jaime Libreros, 61) is “no longer in Portugal”.
Correio da Manhã explains the dismal result: “The decision to extradite Jaime Libreros, to serve a sentence in Spain, was approved by the Supreme Court of Justice on December 11 (2024). But the man, arrested in the Azores with a ton of cocaine on a yacht on the way to the Algarve, was still in Portugal on January 6 – 10 days after the judicial rulings became final”.
This meant that Librero was able to appeal to the court over what was by then ‘illegal imprisonment’, and he was smartly released.
“The trafficker is long gone”, writes CM. “With accomplice Erman Triana Peña, he represented the Cali cartel in Portugal and Spain”.
In Spain, both men led “a network that used marine container ships to bring large quantities of cocaine from Latin America into the ports of Valencia and Cadiz”, says the paper.
Peña meantime has not been as fortunate as Libreros. The Supreme Court also ordered his extradition (to Argentina) last year, and this appears to have gone ahead on January 2.
Portuguese justice frequently runs foul of judicial time limits – an occurrence that went into a worrying form of overdrive during the Covid pandemic.
