Maduro taken to US courthouse for first appearance on drug-trafficking charges

An armoured vehicle carrying Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores (Stefan Jeremiah/AP)

Deposed Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro is set to make his first appearance in an American courtroom on the narco-terrorism charges the Trump administration used to justify capturing him and bringing him to New York.

Maduro and his wife are expected to appear at noon before a judge for a brief, but required, legal proceeding that will likely kick off a prolonged legal fight over whether he can be put on trial in the US.

The couple were transported under armed guard early on Monday from the Brooklyn jail where they have been detained to a Manhattan courthouse.

The trip was swift. A motorcade carrying Maduro left jail around 7.15am and made its way to a nearby athletic field, where Maduro slowly made his way to a waiting helicopter.

The chopper flew across New York harbour and landed at a Manhattan heliport, where Maduro, limping, was loaded into an armoured vehicle.

A few minutes later, the law enforcement caravan was inside a garage at the courthouse complex, just around the corner from the one where Donald Trump was convicted in 2024 of falsifying business records.

As a criminal defendant in the US 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 regular New Yorkers.

But he will also be nearly — but not quite — unique.

Maduro’s lawyers are expected to contest the legality of his arrest, arguing that he is immune from prosecution as a sovereign head of state.

Panamanian strongman Manuel Noriega unsuccessfully tried the same defence after the US captured him in a similar military invasion in 1990.

But the US does not recognise Maduro as Venezuela’s legitimate head of state — particularly after a much-disputed 2024 reelection.

Delcy Rodriguez (Pavel Golovkin/AP)

Venezuela’s new interim president, Delcy Rodriguez, has demanded that the US return Maduro, who long denied any involvement in drug trafficking — although late on Sunday she also struck a more conciliatory tone in a social media post, inviting collaboration with President Trump and “respectful relations” with the US.

Before his capture, Maduro and his allies claimed US hostility was motivated by lust for Venezuela’s rich oil and mineral resources.

The US seized Maduro and his wife in a military operation on Saturday, capturing them in their home on a military base.

Mr Trump said the US would “run” Venezuela temporarily, but secretary of state Marco Rubio said on Sunday that it would not govern the country day-to-day other than enforcing an existing “oil quarantine”.

It was unclear as of Sunday whether Maduro had hired a US lawyer yet.

He and his wife, Cilia Flores, have been under US sanctions for years, making it illegal for any American to take money from them without first securing a licence from the Treasury Department.

While the indictment against Maduro says Venezuelan officials worked directly with the Tren de Aragua gang, a US intelligence assessment published in April, drawing on input from the intelligence community’s 18 agencies, found no co-ordination between Tren de Aragua and the Venezuelan government.

Nicolas Maduro hugs Cilia Flores in Caracas (Ariana Cubillos/AP)

Maduro, his wife and his son — who remains free — are charged along with Venezuela’s interior and justice minister, a former interior and justice minister and Hector Rusthenford Guerrero Flores, an alleged Tren de Aragua leader who has been criminally charged in another case and remains at large.

Among other things, the indictment accuses Maduro and his wife of ordering kidnappings, beatings and murders of those who owed them drug money or undermined their drug trafficking operation. That included a local drug boss’ killing in Caracas, the indictment said.

Maduro’s wife is also accused of accepting hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes in 2007 to arrange a meeting between “a large-scale drug trafficker” and the director of Venezuela’s National Anti-Drug Office, resulting in additional monthly bribes, with some of the money going to Maduro’s wife, according to the indictment.