Venezuela’s Maduro set to again appear in US court: How strong is the case?

March 26 hearing will be second court appearance since Maduro’s January 3 abduction by US military.

Nicolas Maduro, the former leader of Venezuela who was removed by United States forces on January 3, is set to appear in a US court for only the second time.

In the weeks since he was abducted to the US, Maduro’s defence has offered only a preview of how it will approach the extraordinary case on Thursday. In his first court appearance, in January, Maduro maintained he was not a traditional defendant but a “prisoner of war” and “kidnapped” president.

Many questions surrounding Maduro’s prosecution remain unanswered in the run-up to Thursday’s hearing: how Maduro may deploy a carousel of legal arguments to challenge the case; what evidence prosecutors will present to support their claims of “narco-terrorism” and drug trafficking; and ultimately, what would happen in the event federal prosecutors prove unsuccessful.

While the US has a history of enforcing its domestic law against foreign individuals, the prosecution of sitting and former heads of state has been exceedingly rare.

The most recent examples include the prosecution of Manuel Antonio Noriega, then the leader of Panama, in 1989, and more recently, the prosecution of former Honduran leader Juan Orlando Hernandez in 2024, explained Renato Stabile, who served as the court-appointed defence lawyer for Orlando Hernandez.