Maduro pleads not guilty, insists still president

AFP | New York

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Ousted Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro pleaded not guilty to drug trafficking and other charges at a defiant appearance in a New York court Monday, two days after being snatched by US forces in a stunning raid on his home in Caracas.

Maduro, 63, told a federal judge in Manhattan “I’m innocent. I’m not guilty.”

Smiling as he entered the courtroom and wearing an orange shirt with beige trousers, Maduro spoke softly.

“I’m president of the Republic of Venezuela and I’m here kidnapped since January 3, Saturday,” Maduro told the court, speaking in Spanish through an interpreter. “I was captured at my home in Caracas, Venezuela.”

Maduro’s wife Cilia Flores likewise pleaded not guilty. The judge ordered both to remain behind bars and set a new hearing date of March 17.

The presidential couple were forcibly taken by US commandos in the early hours of Saturday in airstrikes on the Venezuelan capital backed by warplanes and a heavy naval deployment.

Thousands of people marched through Caracas in support of Maduro as his former deputy, Delcy Rodriguez, was sworn in as interim president.

Venezuela opposition leader Maria Corina Machado slammed Rodriguez, saying she was “rejected” by the Venezuelan people and calling her “one of the main architects of torture, persecution, corruption, narcotrafficking.”

Speaking from an undisclosed location to broadcaster Sean Hannity on Fox News in her first public comments since the weekend, Machado added that she plans to return to Venezuela “as soon as possible” after leaving under cover last month to accept her Nobel Peace Prize.

After the raid, Trump declared that the United States was “in charge” in Venezuela and intends to take control of the country’s huge but decrepit oil industry.

The 79-year-old president also dismissed the idea of Caracas having new elections in the next month.

“We have to fix the country first. You can’t have an election. There’s no way the people could even vote,” Trump told broadcaster NBC News in an interview aired Monday.

However, US House Speaker and Trump ally Mike Johnson said he thinks an election “should happen in short order” in Venezuela.

Cuba, Greenland next?

Trump, who has shocked many Americans with his unprecedented moves to accumulate domestic power, also now appears increasingly emboldened in foreign policy.

On Sunday, he said communist Cuba was “ready to fall” and he repeated that Greenland, which is part of US ally Denmark, should be controlled by the United States.

Brian Finucane, of the International Crisis Group, told AFP that Trump “seems to be disregarding international law altogether” in Venezuela and added that US domestic law also appeared to have been broken.