Nicolas

“We are once again the US Embassy in Caracas.”

The US has reopened its embassy in Venezuela, nearly three months after it abducted the former leader Nicolas Maduro and his wife.

A United States judge has said that he will not dismiss the drug-trafficking and weapons possession charges brought against former Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores.

But in a Thursday court hearing, Judge Alvin Hellerstein questioned whether the US government has the right to bar Venezuela from funding Maduro’s legal expenses.

The hearing was the first for Maduro and his wife since a brief January arraignment, where they pleaded not guilty.

Maduro and Flores have sought to have the charges against them thrown out. Hellerstein declined to do so, but he pressed the prosecution on some of the issues Maduro’s legal team raised in its petition to dismiss the case.

Among them was a decision by the administration of US President Donald Trump to prevent the Venezuelan government from financing Maduro’s defence.

Federal prosecutors argued that national security reasons prevented the US from allowing such payments. They also pointed to ongoing sanctions against the Venezuelan government.

But Hellerstein pushed back against that argument, noting that Trump had eased sanctions against Venezuela since Maduro’s abduction on January 3. He also questioned how Maduro might pose a security threat while imprisoned in New York.

“The defendant is here. Flores is here. They present no further national security threat,” said Hellerstein. “I see no abiding interest of national security on the right to defend themselves.”

Hellerstein emphasised that, in the US, all criminal defendants have the right to a vigorous defence, as part of the Constitution’s Sixth Amendment.

“The right that’s implicated, paramount over other rights, is the right to constitutional counsel,” he said.

Maduro, who led Venezuela from 2013 to 2026, has been charged with four criminal counts, including narco-terrorism conspiracy, conspiracy to import cocaine, the possession of machine guns and the conspiracy to possess machine guns and other destructive devices.

He and his wife were taken into US custody on January 3, after Trump launched an attack on Venezuela.

The Trump administration has framed the military operation as a “law enforcement function”, but experts say it was widely considered illegal under international law, which protects local sovereignty.

Maduro has cited his status as the leader of a foreign country as part of his push to see the case dismissed.

When he last appeared in court, on January 5, he told the judge, “I’m still the president of my country.”

In a February hearing, his defence team sought to dismiss the charges on the basis that preventing Venezuela from paying his legal fees was “interfering with Mr Maduro’s ability to retain counsel and, therefore, his right under the Sixth Amendment to counsel of his choice”.

In an interview with the news agency AFP on Thursday, Maduro’s son, Venezuelan lawmaker Nicolas Maduro Guerra, said that he trusts the US legal system but believes that his father’s trial has been mishandled.

“This trial has vestiges of illegitimacy from the start, because of the capture, the kidnapping, of an elected president in a military operation,” Maduro Guerra said in Caracas.

Protests and counter-protests took place in front of the New York City courthouse on Thursday, with some condemning the US’s actions and others holding signs in support of the trial with slogans like, “Maduro rot in prison.”

Trump himself weighed in on the proceedings during a Thursday cabinet meeting, hinting that further charges could be brought against Maduro.

“He emptied his prisons in Venezuela, emptied his prisons into our country,” Trump said of Maduro, reiterating an unsubstantiated claim.

“And I hope that charge will be brought at some point. Because that was a big charge that hasn’t been brought yet. It should be brought.”

Trump has had an adversarial relationship with Maduro since his first term in office, when he issued a bounty for the Venezuelan leader’s arrest. He has frequently repeated baseless claims that Maduro intentionally sent immigrants and drugs to the US in a bid to destabilise the country.

Those claims have served as a pretext for Trump claiming emergency powers in realms such as immigration and national security. On Thursday, Trump emphasised that, while he expected a “fair trial”, he expected more legal action to be taken against Maduro.

“I would imagine there are other trials coming because they’ve really sued him just at a fraction of the kind of things that he’s done,” Trump said. “Other cases are going to be brought, as you probably know.”

March 26 (UPI) — Former Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro is scheduled to appear for a court hearing Thursday in New York to argue that the U.S. government is preventing him from paying his lawyer.

The hearing was originally scheduled by Judge Alvin Hellerstein to allow lawyers time to review evidence and possibly set a trial date. But Maduro’s attorney, Barry Pollack, said last month that he will have to withdraw because the U.S. government won’t allow the Venezuelan government to pay his legal fees. Pollack said the Maduros do not have any money.

Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, were captured by the American government in early January. They were taken to New York and charged on federal drug trafficking and weapons charges. The U.S. government then installed Delcy Rodriguez as the new president of Venezuela.

Since then, Maduro has been held at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn in a unit that gives him “special administrative measures.” The SAMs unit doesn’t allow him access to the outside world and keeps him isolated, CBS News reported. Flores is in a different unit in the same facility.

Pollack said the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control granted then revoked a license that would allow Maduro to pay his legal fees. The Maduros and the Venezuelan government are sanctioned by the United States. That means anyone who wants to receive payment must get a license to do so legally.

Pollack argues that not allowing him to pay his fees is a violation of Maduro’s constitutional right to defend himself. Flores’ lawyer has joined the motion.

Prosecutors have said the initial license was an “administrative error” and the Maduros can still use their personal funds.

“OFAC, however, has denied the defendants’ request for an additional exception: to allow them to pay their legal fees from a slush fund controlled by a sanctioned government. That is because OFAC regulations expressly prohibit using a sanctioned entity’s funds to pay a separate sanctioned person’s attorneys’ fees,” prosecutors wrote in a court filing.

Duncan Levin, a former prosecutor who specializes in sanctions law, told CNN that Maduro would still be entitled to a court-appointed attorney.

“Because he is not recognized as the leader of Venezuela and the whole sanctions regime is meant to cut him off, it’s unlikely that the court is going to feel that he’s entitled to any of the money to help fund his criminal defense,” Levin said.

Pollack has also said he intends to challenge the legality of Maduro’s arrest because he was president at the time of the alleged crimes.

“Under the U.S. Constitution, it’s the president who gets to determine who to recognize as head of state, and I am 100% certain a U.S. court is not going to second guess a U.S. determination that Maduro is no longer head of state,” William Dodge, an international law professor at George Washington University’s law school, told CNN.

“Snatching him was illegal under international law,” he said, but “it’s quite well established in the U.S. the illegality of bringing someone into court doesn’t affect the jurisdiction of the court.”

Dodge added: “Drug trafficking isn’t an official act.”