Former Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, will go on trial on June 1 for drug trafficking charges, a judge said Wednesday. Maduro, 63, and Flores, 69, have been held at a Brooklyn jail since U.S. forces seized them from their Caracas home in a middle-of-the-night raid and brought them to New York in early January.
Background
Maduro and Flores have pleaded not guilty to the charges, which carry potential life prison sentences if convicted. The couple’s lawyers have objected to the U.S. military action that led to their capture, with Maduro calling himself a prisoner of war and his capture a kidnapping.
U.S. prosecutors allege that Maduro carried out a conspiracy to move thousands of tons of cocaine into the U.S. by colluding with Venezuelan law enforcement to help drug kingpins. Maduro’s lawyer, Barry Pollack, has said he expects to contest the legality of Maduro’s military abduction and challenge the indictment on sovereign immunity grounds.
Original reporting: Texarkana Gazette — read the source article.
