Maduro says ‘I was captured’ as he pleads not guilty to drug-trafficking charges

Nicolas Maduro (Matias Delacroix/AP)

A defiant Nicolas Maduro declared himself the “president of my country” as he protested against his capture and pleaded not guilty to the federal drug-trafficking charges that the Trump administration used to justify removing him from power.

“I was captured,” Maduro said in Spanish as translated by a courtroom reporter before being cut off by the judge.

Asked later for his plea to the charges, he stated: “I’m innocent. I am not guilty. I am a decent man, the president of my country.” The courtroom appearance, Maduro’s first since he and his wife were seized from their home in a stunning middle-of-the-night military operation, kick-starts the US government’s most consequential prosecution in decades of a foreign head of state.

The criminal case in Manhattan is unfolding against the diplomatic backdrop of an audacious US-engineered regime change that President Donald Trump has said will enable his administration to “run” the South American country.

Maduro, wearing a blue jail uniform, was led into court along with his co-defendant wife just before noon for the brief, but required, legal proceeding.

Both put on headsets to hear the English-language proceeding as it is translated into Spanish.

The couple were transported to the Manhattan courthouse under armed guard early on Monday from the Brooklyn jail where they have been detained since arriving in the US on Saturday.

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 Mr Trump was convicted in 2024 of falsifying business records.

Across the street from the courthouse, the police separated a small but growing group of protesters from about a dozen pro-intervention demonstrators, including one man who pulled a Venezuelan flag away from those protesting over the US action.

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.

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 re-election.

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 Mr 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 early 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”.

Mr Trump suggested on Sunday that he wants to extend American power further in the Western Hemisphere.

Speaking aboard Air Force One, he called Colombia’s president, Gustavo Petro, “a sick man who likes making cocaine and selling it to the United States. And he’s not going to be doing it very long.” He called on Venezuela’s Ms Rodriguez to provide “total access” to her country, or else face consequences.

A 25-page indictment made public on Saturday accuses Maduro and others of working with drug cartels to facilitate the shipment of thousands of tons of cocaine into the US.

They could face life in prison if convicted.

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 coordination between Tren de Aragua and the Venezuelan government.

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.