Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro points to supporters during a campaign rally in the Catia neighborhood of Caracas, Venezuela, July 18, 2024. (AP Photo\/Matias Delacroix, File)<\/small><\/p>\n
2026-07-22T04:03:04Z<\/p>\n
NEW YORK (AP) \u2014 Nicol\u00e1s Maduro returns to court with his lawyers Wednesday and is expected to continue objecting to the U.S. military action that snatched the Venezuelan president from power and deposited him in New York to face drug trafficking charges.<\/p>\n
Maduro, 63, and his wife Cilia Flores, 69, have been held at a Brooklyn jail ever since U.S. forces seized them from their Caracas home<\/a><\/span> in a stunning middle-of-the-night raid and brought them to New York in early January.<\/p>\n Both have pleaded not guilty. They face potential life prison sentences if a jury agrees that they were part of a conspiracy to send cocaine into the U.S.<\/p>\n President Donald Trump\u2019s administration has defended the raid<\/a><\/span> as a \u201csurgical law enforcement operation\u201d in a criminal case first brought<\/a><\/span> six years ago. Maduro has called himself a prisoner of war and his capture a kidnapping.<\/p>\n U.S. prosecutors say Maduro carried out a conspiracy to move thousands of tons of cocaine into the U.S. by colluding with Venezuelan law enforcement to help drug kingpins.<\/p>\n \u201cI am not guilty. I am a decent man, the constitutional president of my country,\u201d he said in Spanish at his arraignment in January.<\/p>\n Maduro\u2019s lawyer, Barry Pollack, has said he expects to contest the legality of Maduro\u2019s \u201cmilitary abduction.\u201d<\/p>\n The lawyers have said there are complex legal defenses that the court must address before a trial can begin.<\/p>\n Maduro and Flores have not asked to be released on bail. Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein has yet to set a trial date.<\/p>\n <\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n