Nicolàs Maduro ran a country but now sits in a Brooklyn jail. What are his defences?
CBC
Ousted Venezuelan leader Nicolàs Maduro — who is in custody in a Brooklyn jail with his wife Cilia Flores after a dramatic pre-dawn arrest and capture in Caracas Saturday — is expected to argue he is immune from prosecution as a head of state, an argument his lawyer hinted at in court Monday.
The United States, on the other hand, will likely argue it does not recognize Maduro as the legitimate leader of Venezuela, and hasn't since 2019, when it said his re-election was fraudulent.
There may be issues with both arguments, though.
"I could see the Department of Justice convincing a judge of their position that he actually isn't a true head of state and he was not properly elected, and I think most nations in the world would agree with that," said Margaret Donovan, a Yale Law School lecturer and former U.S. federal prosecutor.
Still, the defence is a natural choice to lean toward, according to Donovan. "And of course we have a leader here in the United States … who is very keen on having immunity from criminal offences when you are the head of state," she said.
Toward the end of the brief court appearance, where both Maduro and Flores pleaded not guilty, Maduro's defence lawyer, Barry J. Pollack, said his client "is head of a sovereign state and entitled to the privilege" that the status ensures.
Pollack said there were "questions about the legality of his military abduction" and that there would be "voluminous" pretrial filings to address those legal challenges.
Maduro and Flores, along with Maduro's son and three others, are accused of working with drug cartels to facilitate the shipment of thousands of tonnes of cocaine into the U.S.
The charges they face are of narco-terrorism conspiracy, possession of machine guns and destructive devices, and conspiracy to possess machine guns and destructive devices. If convicted, they could face life in prison.
The U.S. has drawn several parallels between its arrest of Maduro and the arrest of Panama's Manuel Antonio Noriega, which happened almost exactly 36 years before Saturday's military operation.
But despite the assets — such as the Panama Canal and Venezuelan oil — that the U.S. may have been trying to secure, there are differences between the two cases.
Noriega's argument that he was immune to prosecution as head of state did not hold up at the time. He never held the title of president during his six-year de facto rule, leaving a string of puppets to fill that role.
In contrast, Maduro claims to have won a popular mandate three times. Although the results of his 2024 re-election are disputed, a number of governments — including China, Russia and Egypt — recognized his victory.
"Before you ever get to guilt or innocence, there are serious questions about whether a U.S. court can proceed at all," said David Oscar Markus, a Miami defence lawyer who has handled several high-profile criminal cases including some involving Venezuela.
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