Two days after being abducted by US forces during a US attack on Caracas, Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro appeared before a US federal judge in Manhattan on Monday and said he was still Venezuela’s rightful leader.
“I’m innocent. I’m not guilty,” Maduro told Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein, who is 92 years old. “I am a decent man. I am still president of my country.” The Venezuelan leader also said he was a “prisoner of war.”
Maduro’s wife, Cilia Flores, also appeared before Hellerstein and appeared to have been injured during the US raid, based on reporting from The New York Times.
“In court, Cilia Flores wore a bandage on her forehead and had what looked to be bruising near her right eye. When she stood up to enter her plea, she appeared to hold onto a US marshal for support,” the Times reported. Mark Donnelly, Flores’s lawyer, said she suffered severe injuries that needed to be treated.
When asked to identify herself, Flores said, “I am the first lady of the Republic of Venezuela,” and also pleaded not guilty. The US Department of Justice has accused Maduro and his wife of being involved in cocaine trafficking and also added a charge for allegedly possessing machine guns.
“If this action were constitutionally sound, the Attorney General wouldn’t be tweeting that they’ve arrested the President of a sovereign country and his wife for possessing guns in violation of a 1934 US firearm law,” Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) wrote on X the day of the US raid.
Maduro’s lawyer, Barry Pollack, who previously represented WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, said on Monday that Maduro is a “head of a sovereign state and entitled to the privilege” that the status ensures and that the defense would raise “questions about the legality of his military abduction.”
