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 Trump administration used to justify removing him from power.
“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, Cilia Flores, were seized from their home in a stunning middle-of-the-night military operation, kick-starts the U.S. government’s most consequential prosecution in decades of a foreign head of state.
Flores also pleaded not guilty in the hearing, which lasted about 20 minutes.
The criminal case in Manhattan is unfolding against the diplomatic backdrop of a U.S.-engineered regime change that President Donald Trump has said will enable his administration to “run” the South American country.
Maduro, wearing a blue jail uniform, was led into court along with his co-defendant wife just before noon for the brief, but required, legal proceeding.
Both put on headsets to hear the English-language proceeding as it is translated into Spanish.
The couple were 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.
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