Convicted Murderer Freed by Trump in Venezuelan Prisoner Swap Is Free in U.S.

He killed three people in Spain and fled to Venezuela, where he was sentenced to 30 years in prison, court documents show. Then last week, the Trump administration negotiated his release as part of a large prisoner swap, and he arrived on American soil.

Now, the convict, Dahud Hanid Ortiz, 54, a U.S. Army veteran, is free in the United States, according to two people with knowledge of the case. One said he was in Orlando, Fla.

When the Americans put Mr. Hanid Ortiz on a plane on Friday back to the United States, at least some people in the Trump administration knew of his criminal past, according to a third person.

Mr. Hanid Ortiz was among 10 Americans and U.S. legal permanent residents extracted by the United States from detention in Venezuela on Friday. In exchange, the United States agreed to allow the release of 252 Venezuelan men it had sent to a maximum-security prison in El Salvador.

The Trump administration claimed all the men were members of the Tren de Aragua gang and had to be removed to protect the security of Americans.

President Trump had used a wartime power, the Alien Enemies Act, to expel them. His administration provided little evidence to back its claim that they were all criminals.

Mr. Hanid Ortiz’s crimes and conviction had been documented in the news media and in public court records for years before his release.

In 2023, officials in the Biden administration who had learned of his detention in Venezuela decided not to take him as part of a different prisoner swap, according to a former U.S. official. The official said that the Spanish authorities had asked the United States to send him to Spain, but that Spanish officials ultimately decided against this — and the Department of Justice decided it didn’t want him in the United States.

The decision by the Trump administration to facilitate Mr. Hanid Ortiz’s release from the Venezuelan prison has elicited anger and fear among relatives of his victims — and a man court records say he had intended to kill but who, ultimately, survived.

Mr. Hanid Ortiz’s crimes took place in 2016 in Madrid, according to Venezuelan court documents, when he visited the office of a lawyer, Victor Salas, who he believed was having a relationship with his wife.

He killed two women there, as well as a man he mistook for Mr. Salas. He fled to Germany and then to Venezuela. Spain sought the extradition of Mr. Salas, but the Venezuelan Constitution does not allow the extradition of its citizens, and he was tried instead in Venezuela.

It is unclear if Mr. Hanid Ortiz can now be extradited to Spain, since he has already been tried and convicted in Venezuela and served some prison time.

The Spanish prosecutor’s office has confirmed Mr. Hanid Ortiz’s conviction and release by the Venezuelan authorities, but declined on Thursday to comment further.

Mr. Hanid Ortiz, a dual Venezuelan American citizen, served 19 years in the Army and was awarded a Purple Heart for his service in Iraq. He suffered multiple physical and mental injuries as a result of his military service, according to an Army court document, and then was forced out of the military after pleading guilty to fraud and larceny.

This week, Mr. Salas said in an interview that when he heard Mr. Hanid Ortiz had been released, he immediately feared for his life.

“If this was an omission, please make amends,” he said, directing his message to Secretary of State Marco Rubio. “Because it not only endangers me, but all Americans, because they are faced with a murderer who killed three innocent people without any qualms.”

Venezuela’s president, Nicolás Maduro, an autocrat, began detaining foreigners on a large scale last year in an attempt to try to extract favorable treatment from other leaders, including Mr. Trump.

Family members of some of the other men recently released have said that the detainees had traveled to South America as tourists or to visit girlfriends, and then were captured by the Venezuelan authorities.

Eight of the 10 U.S. citizens and permanent residents released on Friday have been declared wrongfully detained by the State Department, an official designation that paves the way for access to a rehabilitation program.

Mr. Hanid Ortiz has not been declared wrongfully detained, according to one of the people familiar with the case, though Mr. Rubio used the phrase in a statement about the men on Friday.

“Every wrongfully detained American in Venezuela is now free and back in our homeland,” Mr. Rubio said.

José Bautista contributed reporting from Madrid, and Michael Crowley from Washington.