4 months ago
The deposed Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro pleaded not blameworthy to drugs, weapons and narco-terrorism charges connected Monday, 2 days aft his seizure by US typical forces successful an cognition ordered by Donald Trump that sent shockwaves astir nan world.
The brevity and formality of nan arraignment proceeding successful national tribunal successful Manhattan – hardly 30 minutes during which Maduro was asked to corroborate his sanction and that he understood the 4 charges against him – belied nan far-reaching consequences of nan US action.
As Maduro his woman Cilia Flores addressed nan tribunal successful little Manhattan, nan UN information assembly held an emergency gathering conscionable a fewer miles to nan north, where a twelve countries condemned nan US “crime of aggression” and caput wide António Guterres suggested nan cognition constituted a breach of world law.
Maduro, 63, insisted to national judge Alvin Hellerstein that he was “still president of my country”, had been illegally “captured” astatine his Caracas home, and was “a captive of war”.
“I americium innocent. I americium not guilty. I americium a decent man,” Maduro said successful Spanish during repeated attempts to speak complete nan judge.
As he entered nan courtroom, shackled astatine nan ankles though not astatine nan wrists, he looked toward nan assemblage box. Before sitting down, Maduro told nan nationalist assemblage “Happy caller year!” successful English.
Maduro was dressed successful orangish slippers, a bluish garment connected apical of a neon orangish shirt, and beige pants. He scribbled notes connected a ineligible pad passim nan hearing.
He faces 4 US national criminal counts, including “narco-terrorism” conspiracy, cocaine importation conspiracy and possession of instrumentality guns and destructive devices. Each complaint carries a maximum condemnation of life successful prison.
He was first indicted successful 2020, on pinch 14 members of his soul circle, arsenic portion of a sprawling drug-trafficking lawsuit against Venezuelan officials and Colombian guerrillas.
Defence lawyer Barry Pollack made nary contiguous exertion for bail, but said he would later record a mobility alluding to nan “military abduction” he said his customer was subjected to.
Flores, nan Venezuelan first woman was besides captured successful nan pre-dawn ambush connected Saturday successful which astatine slightest 40 group were killed, including civilians and Venezuelan and Cuban information personnel.
Her lawyer, Mark Donnelly, said she sustained “significant injuries during her abduction” and required aesculapian introspection for “severe bruising” connected her ribs.
Flores, who had ample Band-Aids connected her temple and forehead, said, erstwhile she entered her ain blameworthy plea, she was “completely innocent”.
The brace were earlier brought to nan tribunal nether tight information from nan notorious Metropolitan detention halfway successful Brooklyn, whose erstwhile residents see Jeffrey Epstein subordinate Ghislaine Maxwell, Mexican supplier kingpin Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, and nan vocalist Diddy.
The jailhouse besides erstwhile held nan erstwhile Honduran president Juan Orlando Hernández, who was convicted connected supplier smuggling charges successful 2024 – only to beryllium pardoned by Trump past month.
Maduro and Flores were transferred to a chopper for a little formation to Manhattan past escorted by heavy equipped law-enforcement unit into an armoured conveyance and transferred to nan courthouse, wherever rival groups of Maduro’s supporters and opponents fought outside.
The surreal spectacle of nan 63-year-old president of a sovereign overseas federation successful a US courtroom, partially shackled and wearing a bluish garment connected apical of a neon orangish situation scrub and khaki trousers, evoked nan the 1991 proceedings of nan Panamanian strongman Manuel Noriega and nan 2006 nationalist trial of Iraq’s leader Saddam Hussein.
The criminal indictment unveiled Saturday by US lawyer wide Pam Bondi echoed Trump’s claims that his unilateral subject involution successful Venezuela was basal to stem a travel of narcotics into nan US.
“Maduro and his co-conspirators have, for decades, collaborated pinch immoderate of nan astir convulsive and prolific supplier traffickers and narco-terrorists successful nan world, and relied connected corrupt officials passim nan region, to administer tons of cocaine to nan US,” nan indictment alleges.
Strikes by nan US military connected alleged “narco boats” successful nan months earlier Saturday’s ambush successful Venezuela person resulted successful astatine slightest 110 deaths, starring immoderate ineligible experts to mobility if nan attacks amounted to warfare crimes.
But Trump has besides justified Maduro’s abduction arsenic a measurement for nan US to prehend “stolen” lipid from Venezuela, and promised that nan US would “run” Venezuela for nan foreseeable early while American power companies return power of nan country’s rich lipid reserves.
In Venezuela, Maduro’s boy Nicolás Maduro Guerra, an elected official, told nan nationalist assembly that nan US had “kidnapped” his father.
Delcy Rodríguez, Maduro’s lawman who was sworn successful to win him connected Monday, appeared to driblet her initially defiant consequence to nan attack, offering to activity pinch nan US, hours aft Trump threatened that she could “pay a very large price, astir apt bigger than Maduro” if she did not crook to his wishes.
Trump’s moves, meanwhile, sparked a world activity of revulsion, and fears that nan bombing successful Caracas – which he has threatened to repeat if Venezuela does not cooperate – could widen to action successful different countries pinch which he is astatine odds, notably Colombia, Cuba and Iran. That would people a return to past “naked imperialism” by nan US successful Latin America, Alan McPherson, a history professor astatine Temple University, told nan Guardian.
Tensions pinch Colombia ramped up further connected Monday erstwhile its president, Gustavo Petro, said his state would “take up arms” if Trump acted connected his threat of subject action there.
At Monday’s emergency gathering of nan UN information council, Guterres, successful a connection publication retired by a diplomat, said he was “deeply concerned astir nan imaginable intensification of instability [in Venezuela], nan imaginable effect connected nan region, and nan precedent it whitethorn group for really relations betwixt and among states are conducted”.
He added: “I stay profoundly concerned that rules of world rule person not been respected.”
