Maduro pleads not guilty to drug trafficking charges
A defiant Nicolás Maduro declared himself “the president of my country” as he protested his capture and pleaded not guilty on Monday to the federal drug trafficking charges that the Trump administration used to justify removing him from power in Venezuela.
“I was captured,” Maduro said in Spanish as translated by a courtroom reporter before being cut off by the judge. Asked later for his plea to the charges, he stated: “I’m innocent. I am not guilty. I am a decent man, the president of my country.”
The courtroom appearance, Maduro’s first since he and his wife were seized from their home in a stunning middle-of-the-night military operation, kicks off the US government’s most consequential prosecution in decades of a foreign head of state. The criminal case in Manhattan is unfolding against a broader diplomatic backdrop of an audacious US-engineered regime change that President Donald Trump has said will enable his administration to “run” the South American country.
Maduro was led into court along with his co-defendant wife just before noon for the brief legal proceeding. Both put on headsets to hear the English-language proceeding as it was translated into Spanish. The couple was transported to the Manhattan courthouse under armed guard early Monday from the Brooklyn jail where they’ve been detained since arriving in the US on Saturday.
As a criminal defendant in the US legal system, Maduro will have the same rights as any other person accused of a crime - including the right to a trial by a jury of regular New Yorkers. But he’ll also be nearly - but not quite - unique. The stakes were made clear from the outset as Maduro, who took copious notes throughout the proceedings and wished a Happy New Year to reporters in court, repeatedly pressed his case that he had been unlawfully abducted.
“I am here kidnapped,” Maduro said. “I was captured at my home in Caracas.” US District Judge Alvin Hellerstein, a 92-year-old Clinton appointee, interrupted him, saying: “There will be time and place to go through all of this.” Hellerstein added that Maduro’s attorney could do so later. “At this time, I just want to know if you are Nicolás Maduro Moros,” which Maduro confirmed that he was.
Maduro’s lawyers are expected to contest the legality of his arrest, arguing that he is immune from prosecution as head of state. Barry Pollack, a prominent Washington lawyer whose clients have included WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, said Maduro is “head of a sovereign state and entitled to the privilege” that the status ensures.
He also said the defence would raise “questions about the legality of his military abduction.” Panamanian strongman Manuel Noriega unsuccessfully tried the same immunity defence after the US captured him in a similar military invasion in 1990. But the US doesn’t recognise Maduro as Venezuela’s legitimate head of state - particularly after a much-disputed 2024 reelection.
Maduro’s wife, Cilia Flores, also pleaded not guilty on Monday. She had bandages on her forehead and right temple, and her lawyer said had she suffered “significant injuries” during her capture. Nicolas Maduro being escorted to board a helicopter for transport to Manhattan Federal Court.
