Nicolas Maduro set to appear in US court

Deposed Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro is set to make his first appearance Monday in an American courtroom on the narco-terrorism charges the Trump administration used to justify capturing him and bringing him to New York. Maduro and his wife are expected to appear at noon before a judge for a brief, but required, legal proceeding that will likely kick off a prolonged legal fight over whether he can be put on trial in the US.

The couple will be brought from a Brooklyn jail to a Manhattan courthouse just around the corner from the one where President Donald Trump was convicted in 2024 of falsifying business records. 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.

Maduro’s lawyers are expected to contest the legality of his arrest, arguing that he is immune from prosecution as a sovereign head of State. Panamanian strongman Manuel Noriega unsuccessfully tried the same 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.

Venezuela’s new interim president, Delcy Rodríguez, has demanded that the US return Maduro, who long denied any involvement in drug trafficking - although late Sunday she also struck a more conciliatory tone in a social media post, inviting collaboration with Trump and “respectful relations” with the US. Before his capture, Maduro and his allies claimed US hostility was motivated by lust for Venezuela’s rich oil and mineral resources.            

The US seized Maduro and his wife in a military operation Saturday, capturing them in their home on a military base. Trump said the US would “run” Venezuela temporarily, but Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Sunday that it would not govern the country day-to-day other than enforcing an existing “ oil quarantine.” Trump suggested Sunday that he wants to extend American power further in the western hemisphere.

Speaking aboard Air Force One, he called Colombia’s president, Gustavo Petro, “a sick man who likes making cocaine and selling it to the United States. And he’s not going to be doing it very long.” He called on Venezuela’s Rodriguez to provide “total access” to her country, or else face consequences. A 25-page indictment made public Saturday accuses Maduro and others of working with drug cartels to facilitate the shipment of thousands of tons of cocaine into the US They could face life in prison if convicted.  It wasn’t clear as of Sunday whether Maduro had hired a US lawyer yet.

He and his wife, Cilia Flores, have been under US sanctions for years, making it illegal for any American to take money from them without first securing a license from the Treasury Department. While the indictment against Maduro says Venezuelan officials worked directly with the Tren de Aragua gang, a US intelligence assessment published in April, drawing on input from the intelligence community’s 18 agencies, found no coordination between Tren de Aragua and the Venezuelan Government.

Maduro, his wife and his son - who remains free - are charged along with Venezuela’s interior and justice minister, a former interior and justice minister and Hector Rusthenford Guerrero Flores, an alleged Tren de Aragua leader who has been criminally charged in another case and remains at large.  Among other things, the indictment accuses Maduro and his wife of ordering kidnappings, beatings and murders of those who owed them drug money or undermined their drug trafficking operation.

That included a local drug boss’ killing in Caracas, the indictment said.  Maduro’s wife is also accused of accepting hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes in 2007 to arrange a meeting between “a large-scale drug trafficker” and the director of Venezuela’s National Anti-Drug Office, resulting in additional monthly bribes, with some of the money going to Maduro’s wife, according to the indictment.