Toppled Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro pleaded not guilty on Monday to multiple criminal charges, including narco-terrorism, conspiracy to traffic cocaine into the United States, and possession of machine guns and destructive devices, during a high-profile appearance in a New York federal court.
Speaking through an interpreter before being interrupted by US District Judge Alvin Hellerstein, the 63-year-old declared: “I am innocent. I am not guilty. I am a decent man. I am still president of my country.”
His wife, Cilia Flores, also entered a not guilty plea. The case was adjourned to March 17.
US prosecutors allege Maduro oversaw a vast cocaine-trafficking network involving Mexico’s Sinaloa and Zetas cartels, Colombia’s FARC rebels, and Venezuela’s Tren de Aragua gang.
Maduro has denied the charges, calling them a cover for US ambitions to control Venezuela’s oil wealth.
Maduro and Flores were escorted under heavy security from a Brooklyn detention center, with Maduro appearing in prison attire.
Prosecutors claim his alleged involvement in drug trafficking dates back to his time in Venezuela’s National Assembly in 2000, continuing through his tenure as foreign minister and after succeeding Hugo Chávez in 2013.
The arrest has sparked global condemnation. Russia, China, and several leftist allies denounced the US operation at an emergency UN Security Council session.
UN Secretary-General António Guterres said he was concerned about the possibility of regional instability and questioned the legality of the raid, calling it the most dramatic US intervention in Latin America since the 1989 invasion of Panama.
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All these interventions America is doing, isn’t it an act of war and disrespect to a sovereign state? Where’s the autonomy a state has? Why haven’t they intervened in China? Russia? Japan? Germany?