Venezuelan chief Nicolas Maduro declares he was ‘captured’ as he makes look in US court docket | EUROtoday

Venezuelan chief Nicolás Maduro and his spouse Cilia Flores pleaded not responsible to 4 costs associated to allegations that the ousted president and high officers in his administration steered a large cocaine trafficking operation.

Appearing in a Manhattan federal courthouse Monday earlier than Judge Alvin Hellerstein, Maduro recognized himself because the “captured” Venezuelan chief and declared his innocence.

“I’m innocent. I’m not guilty. I am a decent man,” Maduro mentioned.

Flores echoed the sentiment throughout her not responsible plea.

The couple appeared earlier than a decide two days after they had been captured in Caracas, Venezuela, throughout a lethal U.S. navy operation, the end result of Donald Trump’s months-long strain marketing campaign to topple Maduro’s authorities and “run” the nation with oil firms in tow.

After his seize, federal legislation enforcement officers introduced a handcuffed Maduro to the Metropolitan Detention Center, a federal facility in Brooklyn, the place he’ll stay imprisoned as a authorized battle continues.

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A not too long ago unsealed 25-page grand jury indictment costs Maduro, his spouse and Venezuelan officers with conspiracy to commit narco-terrorism and import cocaine into the United States.

They “abused their positions of public trust and corrupted once-legitimate institutions to import tons of cocaine into the United States,” based on the indictment signed by Jay Clayton, the Trump-appointed U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York.

The newest costs repeat the 2020 indictment towards Maduro that alleged drug trafficking, however added Flores as a defendant. According to the Department of Justice, Flores allegedly brokered a gathering between a large-scale drug trafficker and the director of Venezuela’s National Anti-Drug Office and allegedly accepted tons of of hundreds of {dollars} in bribes.

The alleged drug-trafficking conspiracy “lines the pockets of Venezuelan officials and their families while also benefiting violent narco-terrorists who operate with impunity on Venezuelan soil and who help produce, protect, and transport tons of cocaine to the United States,” based on the doc.

The case is just like one introduced towards former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez, who was sentenced to 45 years in jail after a jury discovered him responsible of main a large cocaine-trafficking operation by his nation’s navy and nationwide police pressure.

But Trump pardoned him final month, claiming that the case towards him was a politically motivated “set up” beneath Joe Biden’s administration.

“He was treated like the Biden administration treated a man named Trump,” the president mentioned Saturday, referring to his personal federal prison prosecutions.

Federal prosecutors allege Maduro led a conspiracy to ship medicine from Venezuela to the United States by way of the Caribbean and Central America utilizing fishing boats and container ships in addition to clandestine airstrips and business airports protected by “corrupt government and military officials,” based on the indictment.

The defendants allegedly relied on “violent narco-terrorist groups” together with varied cartels and gangs, together with Tren de Aragua, which the Trump administration has focused as a part of the president’s huge anti-immigration agenda.

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The seize of the Venezuelan president follows Trump’s months-long navy marketing campaign towards his regime, together with a deadly collection of assaults on boats off Venezuela’s coast and a large buildup of U.S. naval vessels and different navy belongings within the area.

The U.S. Coast Guard not too long ago seized a second sanctioned oil tanker and pursued a 3rd, following months of lethal strikes on alleged drug-carrying boats within the Caribbean and japanese Pacific which have killed greater than 100 folks.

In a press convention after Saturday’s assault, Trump mentioned an interim “group” with high administration officers will “run” Venezuela for “a period of time” till the United States determines a “peaceful and just transition” can happen.

Trump didn’t rule out the opportunity of American “boots on the ground,” although he urged U.S. navy belongings would defend the nation’s huge oil infrastructure in a nation with the biggest confirmed oil reserves on the earth.

“We’re going to have our very large United States oil companies, the biggest anywhere in the world, go in, spend billions of dollars, fix the badly broken infrastructure and start making money for the country,” Trump mentioned Saturday.

The United States will then promote “large amounts of oil to other countries,” based on Trump.

“We’re in the oil business,” he mentioned. “We’re going to sell it to them.”

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Maduro’s arrest has solely accelerated authorized and political scrutiny into the administration’s assaults, which law-of-war specialists talking to The Independent in latest months have labeled outright murders and battle crimes in violation of worldwide legislation.

Administration officers argue that Maduro’s seize and two dozen strikes on alleged drug-carrying boats are absolutely inside authorized bounds. The administration informed Congress final yr that the United States is formally engaged in an “armed conflict” with drug cartels that the president has labeled “unlawful combatants.”

Despite Trump’s insistence that his marketing campaign was meant to cease the circulation of medicine from coming into the United States, Venezuela is just not a significant cocaine-producing nation, based on the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime. Virtually all coca crops are inside Bolivia, Peru and Colombia, and the Drug Enforcement Administration beneath Trump didn’t point out Venezuela in a March report on the state of cocaine trafficking.

Trump additionally not too long ago declared fentanyl a “weapon of mass destruction,” although that drug, which is utilized in hospitals throughout the United States, can be not manufactured in Venezuela nor current on the boats allegedly smuggling medicine into the nation.

The president has repeatedly mentioned he wouldn’t essentially search permission from Congress to launch a land battle in Venezuela, saying as a substitute that navy belongings are “just going to kill people” there as a substitute.

“I don’t think we’re going to necessarily ask for a declaration of war. I think we’re just going to kill people that are bringing drugs into our country, OK?” Trump mentioned throughout a White House roundtable with administration officers in October. “We’re going to kill them,”