The Spanish prosecutor’s office approves the extradition to Panama of a suspected Colombian hitman for the murder of an American, whose body was dismembered and placed in a suitcase to be later burned, a crime for which a compatriot and friend of the victim is in custody.
The Spanish National Court is holding an extradition hearing on Monday to decide whether to hand over the defendant, CCC, arrested in October 2021 at Madrid Barajas airport under an international arrest warrant issued in April 2007 by the 4th Superior Prosecutor’s Office of the First Judicial District of Panama.
According to the extradition request, the defendant is linked to the discovery, on April 17, 2007, street no. 11 from the Corregimiento de Río Abajo (Panama), the remains of the mutilated and burned body of a woman, who turned out to be an American citizen, residing in Panama.
Investigations have determined that he and an accomplice were the hitmen who killed the US citizen with a knife in her own apartment, then mutilated her and took her in a suitcase in a taxi to a place where they burned his remains. Another American citizen, friend of the victim, is in custody.
The facts constitute intentional homicide according to the Panamanian penal code, which corresponds to a crime of treacherous murder in Spanish law, explains the prosecutor of the National Court in his report.
For this reason, it considers that the conditions for extradition have been met, mainly that of dual criminality and the minimum sentence, since it is a criminal offense under common law, punishable in Panama by penalties of 20 to 30 years in prison and do not constitute inhuman or degrading punishment. .
After his arrest in October 2021, the accused went into pre-trial detention, but had to be released on December 23 because the Panamanian authorities had not submitted the extradition documents on time.
The extradition request finally arrived on January 21, 2022 and in April the Council of Ministers agreed to continue the procedure in court.
On May 13, 2022, he was summoned before the investigating judge and during his appearance the defendant refused to be surrendered.