"A defiant Nicolás Maduro declared himself "the president of my country" as he protested his capture and pleaded not guilty Monday to federal drug trafficking charges that the Trump administration used to justify removing him from power in Venezuela. "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, kicked off the U.S. government's most consequential prosecution in decades of a foreign head of state. The criminal case in Manhattan is unfolding against a broader diplomatic backdrop of an audacious U.S.-engineered regime change that President Donald Trump has said will enable his administration to "run" the South American country."
Nicolás Maduro appeared in U.S. federal court and pleaded not guilty to drug trafficking charges while protesting that he was captured and kidnapped. He declared himself the president of his country and called himself innocent. The appearance was his first since a middle-of-the-night military operation seized him and his wife, who is a co-defendant. Both were transported under armed guard from a Brooklyn jail and used headsets for Spanish translation in court. The Manhattan case is a rare prosecution of a foreign head of state and sits against a backdrop of U.S.-driven regime change efforts.
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