Maduro says 'I was captured' as he pleads not guilty to drug trafficking charges

NEW YORK (AP) — A defiant Nicolás Maduro declared himself "the president of my country” as he protested his capture and pleaded not guilty on Monday to the federal drug trafficking charges that the U.S. government used to justify removing him from power in Venezuela.

“I was captured,” Maduro said in Spanish as translated by a courtroom reporter before being cut off by the judge. Asked later for his plea to the charges, he stated, "I’m innocent. I am not guilty. I am a decent man, the president of my country.”

The courtroom appearance, Maduro's first since he and his wife were seized from their home in a stunning middle-of-the-night military operation, kicks off the U.S. government’s most consequential prosecution in decades of a foreign head of state. 

Maduro was led into court along with his co-defendant wife just before noon for the brief legal proceeding. Both put on headsets to hear the English-language proceedings as they were translated into Spanish.

The couple was transported to the Manhattan courthouse under armed guard early Monday from the Brooklyn jail where they've been detained since arriving in the U.S. on Saturday.

As a criminal defendant in the U.S. legal system, Maduro will have the same rights as any other person accused of a crime — including the right to a trial by a jury of regular New Yorkers. But he’ll also be nearly — but not quite — unique.

The stakes were made clear from the outset as Maduro, who took copious notes throughout the proceedings and wished a Happy New Year to reporters in court, repeatedly pressed his case that he had been unlawfully abducted.

“I am here kidnapped," Maduro said. “I was captured at my home in Caracas.”

U.S. District Judge Alvin Hellerstein, a 92-year-old Clinton appointee, interrupted him, saying: “There will be time and place to go through all of this." Hellerstein added that Maduro’s attorney could do so later.

“At this time, I just want to know if you are Nicolás Maduro Moros,” to which Maduro confirmed that he was.

Maduro’s lawyers are expected to contest the legality of his arrest, arguing that he is immune from prosecution as head of state. Panamanian strongman Manuel Noriega unsuccessfully tried the same immunity defense after the U.S. captured him in a similar military invasion in 1990. But the U.S. doesn’t recognize Maduro as Venezuela’s legitimate head of state — particularly after a much-disputed 2024 reelection.

Maduro's wife, Cilia Flores, also pleaded not guilty on Monday. She had bandages on her forehead and right temple, and her lawyer said she had suffered “significant injuries” during her capture.

A 25-page indictment accuses Maduro and others of working with drug cartels to facilitate the shipment of thousands of tons of cocaine into the U.S. They could face life in prison if convicted.

Among other things, the indictment accuses Maduro and his wife of ordering kidnappings, beatings, and murders of those who owed them drug money or undermined their drug trafficking operation. That included a local drug boss’s killing in Caracas, the indictment said.

Outside the courthouse, police separated protesters of the U.S. military action from pro-intervention demonstrators. Inside the courtroom, as Maduro stood to leave with federal officers, a man in the audience stood and began speaking forcefully at him in Spanish, calling him an “illegitimate” president.

The man, 33-year-old Pedro Rojas, said later that he had been imprisoned by the Venezuelan regime. As deputy U.S. marshals led Maduro from the courtroom, the deposed leader looked directly at the man and shot back in Spanish: “I am a kidnapped president. I am a prisoner of war.”

The U.S. seized Maduro and his wife in a military operation early Saturday, capturing them in their home on a military base.

Venezuela’s new interim leader, Delcy Rodríguez, has demanded that the U.S. return Maduro, who long denied any involvement in drug trafficking — although late Sunday she also struck a more conciliatory tone in a social media post, inviting collaboration with President Donald Trump and “respectful relations” with the U.S.

Rodríguez was sworn in on Monday by her brother, National Assembly leader Jorge Rodríguez.