NEW YORK (AP) — Ousted Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro will make his first appearance in a U.S. courtroom Monday on the narco-terrorism charges the Trump administration used to justify his capture and transfer to New York.
Maduro and his wife are expected to appear before a judge at noon for a brief but mandatory trial that is likely to kick off a lengthy legal battle over whether he can stand trial in the US.
The couple will be brought from a Brooklyn jail to a Manhattan courthouse just around the corner from the courthouse where President Donald Trump was convicted in 2024 of falsifying business records.
As a criminal defendant in the U.S. 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 ordinary New Yorkers. But it will also be almost – but not quite – unique.
Maduro’s lawyers are expected to challenge the legality of his arrest, arguing that he is immune from prosecution as a sovereign head of state.
Panamanian strongman Manuel Noriega unsuccessfully attempted the same defense after the US captured him in a similar military invasion in 1990. However, the US does not recognize Maduro as Venezuela’s legitimate head of state – especially after highly contested re-election in 2024.
the new interim president of Venezuela, Delcy Rodriguezis demanding the US return Maduro, who has long denied any involvement in the drug trade – though she also struck a more conciliatory tone in a social media post late Sunday, calling for cooperation with Trump and “respectful relations” with the US.
Before his capture, Maduro and his allies claimed that US hostility was motivated by a desire for Venezuela’s rich oil and mineral resources.
The United States captured Maduro and his wife in a military operation on Saturday, capturing them in their home on a military base. Trump said the U.S. was temporarily “running” Venezuela, but Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Sunday they would not run the country from day to day other than by enforcing the existing ” oil quarantine.”
Trump suggested on Sunday that he wants to expand American power further in the western hemisphere.
Aboard Air Force One, he called Colombian President Gustavo Petro “a sick man who likes to make cocaine and sell it to the United States. And he won’t be doing it for much longer.”
He called on Venezuela’s Rodriguez to grant “full access” to her country or face consequences.
25 page indictment published on Saturday accusations against Maduro and others of working with drug cartels to facilitate transportation thousands of tons of cocaine to the U.S. They could face life in prison if convicted.
It was unclear until Sunday whether Maduro had already hired a U.S. lawyer.
He and his wife, Cilia Flores, have been under US sanctions for years, making it illegal for any American to withdraw money from them without first securing a license from the Treasury Department.
While countering the accusations, Maduro says that Venezuelan officials worked directly with the Tren de Aragua gang, a Assessment of US intelligence services published in April, drawing on information from 18 intelligence community agencies, found no coordination between Tren de Aragua and the Venezuelan government.
Maduro, his wife and son — who remains at large — are charged along with Venezuela’s former interior and justice minister and Hector Rusthenford Guerrero Flores, the alleged leader of Tren de Aragua, who was criminally charged in another case and remains at large.
Among other things, the indictment accuses Maduro and his wife of ordering the kidnappings, beatings and murders of those who owed them money for drugs or undermined their drug trade. This included the killing of a local drug lord in Caracas, the indictment said.
Maduro’s wife is also accused of accepting hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes in 2007 to secure a meeting between a “major drug trafficker” and the director of Venezuela’s National Narcotics Bureau, which led to additional monthly bribes, with some of the money going to Maduro’s wife, according to the indictment.
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