Overview

• Ortiz arrived under US custody at a military base near San Antonio, Texas, and his exact location remains undisclosed
• Spain’s Fiscalía de Madrid has sent US authorities a dossier detailing his conviction for the 2016 Madrid triple homicide
• Victims’ families and Spanish legal sources have condemned his release and urged the reopening of legal proceedings in Spain
• A Caracas tribunal sentenced Ortiz to the maximum 30-year term in 2024 after he was detained by Venezuela’s DGCIM in 2018 for fleeing Germany following the murders
• The July 18 swap exchanged Ortiz and nine other US citizens for 252 Venezuelans detained in El Salvador in a deal overseen by Washington and Caracas