Captured Maduro Pleads Not Guilty to US Charges, Says ‘I am Still President of My Country’

Emmanuel Addeh in Abuja

Toppled Venezuelan President, Nicolas Maduro, yesterday pleaded not guilty to narcotics charges after President Donald Trump’s stunning capture of him rattled world leaders and left officials in Caracas scrambling to regroup.

“I am innocent. I am not guilty. I am a decent man. I am still president of my country,” Maduro, 63, said through an interpreter, before being cut off by U.S. District Judge Alvin Hellerstein in Manhattan federal court.

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, Reuters reported.

Hours later in Caracas, Maduro’s Vice President Delcy Rodriguez was sworn in as Venezuela’s interim president with words of support for Maduro but no indication she would fight the U.S. move.

“I come with pain in my heart over the kidnapping of two heroes who are being held hostage,” she said, pledging to move Venezuela forward in “these terrible times.”

Maduro 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.

He faces four criminal counts: narco-terrorism, cocaine importation conspiracy and possession of machine guns and destructive devices. Maduro has long denied the allegations, saying they were a mask for imperialist designs on Venezuela’s rich oil reserves, the report added.

Trump has made no secret of wanting to share in Venezuela’s oil riches. U.S. oil companies’ shares jumped on Monday, fueled by the prospect of access to those 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 on Monday, 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.

U.N. 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.

On Monday morning, Maduro – his hands zip-tied – and his wife were escorted by armed guards in tactical gear from a Brooklyn detention center to a helicopter bound for the Manhattan federal court.

The judge began the hearing at 12:02 p.m by summarising the charges in the indictment. Shackled at the ankles and wearing orange and beige prison garb, Maduro 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, alternating between spitting defiance and possible cooperation with the Trump administration.