- Case adjourned till March 17
Toppled Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro pleaded not guilty yesterday to narcotics charges after President Donald Trump’s stunning capture of him rattled world leaders and left officials in Caracas scrambling to respond.
Maduro, 63, pleaded innocent in New York federal court to four criminal counts: narco-terrorism, cocaine importation conspiracy and possession of machine guns and destructive devices.
“I am innocent. I am not guilty. I am a decent man. I am still president of my country,” Maduro said through an interpreter, before being cut off by U.S. District Judge Alvin Hellerstein.
Maduro’s wife Cilia Flores also pleaded not guilty. The next court date was set for March 17. Dozens of protesters, both pro- and anti-Maduro, gathered outside the courthouse before the half-hour hearing.
He is accused of overseeing a cocaine-trafficking network that partnered with violent groups including Mexico’s Sinaloa and Zetas cartels, Colombian FARC rebels and Venezuela’s Tren de Aragua gang.
Maduro has long denied the allegations, saying they were a mask for imperialist designs on Venezuela’s rich oil reserves.
This came as Venezuela’s vice president and oil minister Delcy Rodriguez was formally sworn in yesterday as the country’s interim president.
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Rodriguez, a 56-year-old labour lawyer known for close connections to the private sector and her devotion to the ruling party, was sworn in by her brother Jorge, who is the head of the national assembly legislature.
Trump has made no secret of wanting to share in Venezuela’s oil riches. U.S. oil companies’ shares jumped yesterday, fueled by the prospect of access to its vast reserves.
While world leaders and U.S. politicians grappled with the extraordinary seizure of a head of state, an emergency order in Venezuela, published in full yesterday, ordered police to search and capture anyone who supported Saturday’s U.S. attack.
At the United Nations, the Security Council debated the implications of the raid, which was condemned by Russia, China and leftist allies of Venezuela.
UN chief Antonio Guterres raised concerns about instability in Venezuela and the legality of Trump’s strike, the most dramatic U.S. intervention in Latin America since the 1989 Panama invasion. U.S. Special Forces swooped into Caracas by helicopter on Saturday, shattered his security cordon and dragged him from the threshold of a safe room.
Yesterday morning, Maduro – his hands zip-tied – and his wife were escorted by armed guards in tactical gear from a Brooklyn detention centre to a helicopter bound for the Manhattan federal court.
The judge began the hearing at 12:02 p.m. (1702 GMT) by summarising the charges in the indictment. Maduro, in orange and beige prison garb, listened on headphones through an interpreter.
Hellerstein asked Maduro to stand and confirm his identity. He replied in Spanish.
The judge told the couple of their right to inform the Venezuelan consulate of their arrests.
Prosecutors say Maduro has been involved in drug trafficking from the time he began serving in Venezuela’s National Assembly in 2000 to his tenure as foreign minister and subsequent 2013 election as the late president Hugo Chavez’s successor.
Maduro lawyer Barry Pollack said he anticipated voluminous and complex litigation over what he called his client’s “military abduction.” He said Maduro was not requesting his release but may later.
Flores’s lawyer, Mark Donnelly, said she sustained significant injuries including severe bruising on her ribs and asked that she be provided X-rays and a physical evaluation.
Federal prosecutors in New York first indicted Maduro in 2020 as part of a long-running narcotics trafficking case against current and former Venezuelan officials and Colombian guerrillas. An updated indictment made public on Saturday added some new details and co-defendants, including Cilia Flores.
The U.S. has considered Maduro an illegitimate dictator since he declared victory in a 2018 election marred by allegations of massive irregularities.
Experts in international law have questioned the legality of the raid, with some condemning Trump’s actions as a repudiation of a rules-based international order.
In Caracas, senior officials from Maduro’s 13-year-old government remain in charge of the South American oil producer of 30 million people, first spitting defiance then pivoting to possible cooperation with the Trump administration.
American oil companies will return to Venezuela and rebuild the sector’s infrastructure, Trump told reporters on Air Force One on Sunday.
“We’re taking back what they stole,” Trump said. “We’re in charge.”
However, four oil industry executives said the Trump administration did not consult major U.S. companies Exxon Mobil (XOM.N), ConocoPhillips (COP.N) or Chevron Corp (CVX.N), before or after U.S. forces seized Maduro.
U.S. oil executives were expected to meet Trump administration officials on the Venezuela plan, an oil industry source said.
Venezuela has the world’s largest reserves – about 303 billion barrels – but the sector has long been in decline from mismanagement, under-investment and U.S. sanctions, averaging 1.1 million bpd output last year, a third of its 1970s heyday.
After first denouncing Maduro’s capture as a colonial oil-grab and “kidnapping,” Venezuela’s acting president, Delcy Rodriguez, softened her stance on Sunday, saying it was a priority to have respectful relations with Washington.
“We invite the U.S. government to work together on an agenda of cooperation,” Rodriguez said. “President Donald Trump, our peoples and our region deserve peace and dialogue, not war.”
Trump has threatened another strike if Venezuela does not cooperate with opening its oil industry and stopping drugs. Trump also threatened Colombia and Mexico on Sunday and said Cuba’s communist government “looks like it’s ready to fall”.
Just how the U.S. would work with a post-Maduro government, full of sworn ideological enemies, is unclear. Trump appears to have sidelined for now the Venezuelan opposition, where many anti-Maduro activists had assumed this would be their moment.
Rodriguez, daughter of a leftist guerrilla who has been praised as a “tigress” by Maduro, is also known as a pragmatist with good connections in the private sector and a belief in economic orthodoxy.
Washington’s allies, most of whom did not recognize Maduro as president due to vote-rigging allegations, have been more muted, stressing the need for dialogue and adherence to law.
Trump’s raid has created a political storm in the U.S., with opposition Democrats saying they were misled. Secretary of State Marco Rubio was due to brief top lawmakers later yesterday.
One in three Americans approve of the strike on Venezuela that toppled the country’s president and 72% worry the U.S. will become too involved in the South American country, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll that concluded yesterday.
While a handful of conservative figures have criticized the Venezuela operation as a betrayal of Trump’s “America First” pledge to avoid foreign entanglements, most supporters have largely praised it as a swift, painless win.
Inside Venezuela, Maduro opponents have kept celebrations on hold as his allies remain in power and there is no sign of the military turning against them, even though many suspect some insiders helped in Saturday’s operation.
