Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, were arraigned in a New York federal court on Monday, Jan. 5, after U.S. forces captured them in Caracas over the weekend and transported them to the United States.
Speaking through an interpreter, Maduro told U.S. District Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein that he considered himself a “prisoner of war” and pleaded not guilty.
“I am the president of Venezuela,” Maduro said, according to the interpreter. “I consider myself a prisoner of war. I was captured at my home in Caracas, Venezuela.”
President Donald Trump confirmed Maduro and Flores’ removal in a Truth Social post on Saturday, Jan. 3, along with what he described as a “large-scale strike” on Caracas. Trump accused Maduro of narco-terrorism and said the U.S. planned to “take control” of the country on an interim basis.
Maduro, 63, faces four charges: narco-terrorism conspiracy, cocaine importation conspiracy, possession of machine guns and destructive devices, and conspiracy to possess machine guns and destructive devices. He entered a plea of not guilty.
“I am not guilty,” he said. “I am a decent man. I am still the president of my country.”
Flores, 69, is charged with cocaine importation conspiracy, possession of machine guns and destructive devices, and conspiracy to possess machine guns and destructive devices. She also pleaded not guilty, speaking briefly through an interpreter.
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“Not guilty, completely innocent,” she said.
As he was led out of the courtroom, Maduro shouted in Spanish, repeating his claim that he is a “prisoner of war.”
In their indictment, federal prosecutors alleged that senior figures in Venezuela’s government “abused their positions of public trust” for decades to facilitate large-scale cocaine trafficking into the United States, placing Maduro “at the forefront” of that alleged activity.
After the operation, Trump spoke to reporters at Mar-a-Lago on Saturday and suggested Venezuela’s oil reserves were a key factor behind the action. Venezuela holds the world’s largest proven oil reserves.
“We’re going to get the oil flowing the way it should be… we’re gonna run it properly,” Trump said. “We’re gonna make sure the people of Venezuela are taken care of.”
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He continued, “We’re going to run the country right. It’s going to be run very judiciously, very fairly. And it’s gonna make a lot of money. You know they stole our oil. We built that whole industry and they just took it over like we were nothing. So we did something about it. We’re late, but we did something about it.”
He later added, “We’ll be selling large amounts of oil [from Venezuela] to other countries.”
On Jan. 4, Trump also issued a warning to Venezuela’s interim leader, Delcy Rodríguez, urging her to cooperate with his plans and provide the U.S. “total access” to the country’s natural reserves.
Speaking with The Atlantic, Trump said of Rodríguez, “If she doesn’t do what’s right, she is going to pay a very big price, probably bigger than Maduro.”
When asked to clarify, he said, “I just say that she will face a situation probably worse than Maduro. Because, you know, Maduro gave up immediately.”
The day prior, Trump said Secretary of State Marco Rubio had spoken to Rodríguez and that she told him, “We’ll do whatever you need.”
“She, I think, was quite gracious, but she really doesn’t have a choice,” Trump said per the BBC.
