Last Updated on January 6, 2026 12:43 am by INDIAN AWAAZ
Defiant Maduro says ‘I am still the president’ and pleads not guilty
AMN / NEWS DESK
Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, arrived at a U.S. federal court in New York to face narco-terrorism charges. The couple were transported under armed guard todayfrom a Brooklyn jail, where they have been detained, to a courthouse in Manhattan.
U.S. forces captured Maduro and his wife in a military operation on Saturday, detaining them at their residence on a military base. A 25-page indictment made public the same day accuses Maduro and others of working with drug cartels to facilitate the shipment of thousands of tons of cocaine into the United States. The indictment also alleges that Maduro’s wife accepted hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes in 2007 to arrange a meeting between a major drug trafficker and the director of Venezuela’s National Anti-Drug Office.
President Donald Trump declared the US is “in charge” of Venezuela, as he issued stark warnings to other countries that they could be next. Trump’s administration is working quickly to establish a pliant interim government that includes repairing the country’s oil infrastructure, according to US officials, as acting president Delcy Rodríguez called for “cooperation” with the US. Meanwhile, Venezuelans are hunkering down amid apprehension of what may come next.