The Attorney General’s Office (PGR) announced this Friday that a Cape Verdean citizen wanted for two murders in Cape Verde has been arrested in the United States of America (USA) but will not be extradited to the archipelago.
Cape Verdean PGR said in a statement that after the suspect fled to the US through the Department of Cooperation and Comparative Law, “he began contacts” with US authorities through the country’s embassy in Praia.
“They culminated in the arrest on May 10 of the aforementioned citizen, accused of committing a crime of forging documents, more precisely a passport,” the situation of the suspect, who also has US citizenship, is said.
“As part of his escape plan, the visa had to make false statements at the US embassy in Senegal in order to obtain a new passport, which allowed him to enter this country, given that his previous passport remains in the possession of Cape Town. Verdean of the judiciary, which applied to him, as a measure of coercion, including a ban on leaving the country, ”explains PGR.
He adds that a Cape Verdean who, in addition to the murders, is accused of Cape Verde and other crimes, is punished in the United States by imprisonment for up to 10 years, three years of parole and a fine of up to up to 250,000 US dollars (230 US dollars. thousand euros).
“Because he is an American citizen, he will not be extradited or tried in the United States for acts committed in Cape Verde at this time, as there is no extradition agreement between the two states that would provide for the possibility of extradition of the citizens concerned for the crimes under consideration,” recalls PGR.
However, the Attorney General’s Office refers to the fact that “an extradition agreement of this kind would run into” in Cape Verde a “constitutional obstacle”, considering that Article 38 of the Constitution of the Republic “provides only the possibility of extradition of citizens accused of the practice of committing crimes of terrorism or organized international crime if committed prior to the acquisition or re-acquisition of Cape Verdean citizenship, which would not have been the case.”