Venezuela’s ousted leader Nicolás Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores have appeared in court for the first time, entering not-guilty pleas to drug trafficking and weapons charges. Maduro and Flores were flown to the United States late Saturday after being captured in a bold US military operation that had been planned for months and signed off by Donald Trump.
As reported by Sydney Morning Herald, Maduro appeared before the court in New York shortly after 4am on Tuesday (AEDT) with his ankles shackled. He entered a not-guilty plea to multiple charges, declaring to the judge, “I am innocent. I am not guilty. I am a decent man.”
He went on to describe his detainment as a kidnapping. “I’m the president of the republic of Venezuela … I am here kidnapped … I was captured at my home in Caracas, Venezuela,” he said, prompting District Judge Alvin Hellerstein to cut him off. His court-appointed lawyer also raised “questions about the legality of his military abduction” and promised there would be “voluminous” pretrial filings.
During the court appearance, Nine News foreign correspondent Reid Butler says “someone in the public gallery yelled out: ‘On behalf of Venezuela I hope you will pay’.”
“Maduro’s response to that was: ‘By the love of god I will be free’.”
Flores likewise entered a not-guilty plea. Her lawyer told the court she sustained injuries during her arrest in Venezuela and was seeking medical treatment for a suspected rib fracture.
The case was adjourned to March 17.
The United Nations has since condemned the actions of the United States, saying it was “deeply concerned” that the U.S. had failed to uphold international law and raised concerns about the precedent it could set.
In a statement, UN Secretary-General António Guterres cautioned that the capture of Maduro could lead to increased instability in Venezuela and across the region.
“I am deeply concerned about the possible intensification of instability in the country, the potential impact on the region, and the precedent it may set for how relations between and among states are conducted,” he said.
Addressing the UN’s most powerful body, countries criticised Trump’s intervention in Venezuela, as well as his recent remarks suggesting potential military action against nations such as Colombia and Mexico over drug trafficking allegations.
Denmark, which holds jurisdiction over the island, issued a measured response of proposals to take over Greenland, stopping short of naming its NATO ally directly.
“The inviolability of borders is not up for negotiation,” said Christina Markus Lassen, Danish ambassador to the UN.
She also defended Venezuela’s sovereignty, saying “no state should seek to influence political outcomes in Venezuela through the use of threat of force or through other means inconsistent with international law”.
French President Emmanuel Macron, who previously endorsed Maduro’s capture, was more pointed in his remarks at the meeting, warning that any breaches of international law by the five permanent members of the UN Security Council, including the United States, undermine “the very foundation of the international order”.
“The military operation that has led to the capture of Maduro runs counter to the principle of peace dispute resolution and runs counter to the principle of non-use of force,” said Jay Dharmadhikari, deputy French ambassador to the UN.
China and Russia — long among the most vocal critics of US foreign policy and themselves permanent members of the Security Council — urged the UN to unite in opposing what they described as America’s return to an “era of lawlessness”.
Maduro, like his predecessor, cultivated close ties with Russia, while China emerged as the primary destination for much of Venezuela’s oil exports.
“We cannot allow the United States to proclaim itself as some kind of a supreme judge, which alone bears the right to invade any country, to label culprits, to hand down and to enforce punishments irrespective of notions of international law, sovereignty and non-intervention,” Russian ambassador Vasily Nebenzya said.
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