Deposed Venezuelan President pleads not guilty, says he has been kidnapped

“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 US 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.

With dozens of both pro- and anti-Maduro protestors gathered outside the courthouse, Maduro stood shackled at the ankles and wearing orange and beige prison clothing. He declared he had been ‘kidnapped’ and remained the president of Venezuela. He listened to an interpreter through headphones as Hellerstein summarised the charges.

Maduro is accused of overseeing a cocaine-trafficking network with international drug cartels and 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.

Maduro’s defense lawyer Barry Pollack said he anticipated voluminous and complex litigation over what he called his client’s “military abduction”.

Successor sworn in

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 US move.

A recent US intelligence assessment determined Rodriguez would be best positioned to lead a temporary government in Maduro’s absence, finding that opposition figures such as Nobel Peace Prize winner Maria Corina Machado or one-time presidential candidate Edmundo Gonzalez would struggle to gain legitimacy, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing people familiar with the classified report.

Asked by Reuters about the report, White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt said, “The President and his national security team are making realistic decisions to finally ensure Venezuela aligns with the interests of the United States.”

While many anti-Maduro activists had assumed this would be their moment, Trump appeared to have sidelined the Venezuelan opposition for now. Instead, he has suggested Rodriguez was willing to work with Washington.

Leavitt told Fox News that Secretary of State Marco Rubio was in “constant correspondence” with the remaining Maduro government, and that Washington maintained “leverage” over Caracas.

The Wall Street Journal added that the intelligence assessment concluded that Rodriguez was among the few Venezuelan leaders capable of maintaining order, along with the interior and defense ministers, in a government dominated by ideological opponents of the US.

Trump told NBC News the US was not at war with Venezuela but rather, “we’re at war with the people that sell drugs”.

Trump said a 30-day timeline for a fresh voting was unrealistic, and that the US would need to help address the country’s problems before that. “We have to fix the country first. You can’t have an election. There’s no way the people could even vote,” Trump said.

Question of legality

The US has considered Maduro an illegitimate dictator since he declared victory in a 2018 election marred by allegations of massive irregularities.

At the same time 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.

Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche, who previously served as Trump’s criminal defense lawyer while in private practice, told NBC News the Trump administration “did everything within the law”, and that the United States has an “absolute legal right to go and arrest people charged with horrible crimes”.

Trump also told NBC News that the US may subsidise the rebuilding of the country’s oil infrastructure by US companies, a project he said could be completed in less than 18 months.

CBS News, citing two unnamed sources, said representatives of oil majors Exxon Mobil, ConocoPhillips, and Chevron Corp would meet with Energy Secretary Chris Wright on Thursday.