New York. Deposed Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro is set to make his first appearance Monday in an American courtroom on the narco-terrorism charges the Trump administration cited to justify capturing him and bringing him to New York.

Maduro and his wife are expected to appear at noon before a judge for a brief but required legal proceeding that will likely mark the start of a prolonged legal battle over whether he can be put on trial in the United States.

The couple were transported under armed guard early Monday from the Brooklyn jail where they have been detained to a Manhattan courthouse.

The trip was swift. A motorcade carrying Maduro left the jail around 7:15 a.m. and headed to a nearby athletic field, where Maduro slowly walked to a waiting helicopter. The chopper flew across New York Harbor and landed at a Manhattan heliport, where Maduro, limping, was loaded into an armored vehicle.

Minutes later, the law enforcement caravan entered a garage at the courthouse complex, just around the corner from where Donald Trump was convicted in 2024 of falsifying business records.

As a criminal defendant in the US legal system, Maduro will have the same rights as any other person accused of a crime — including the right to a jury trial before New Yorkers. But he will also be nearly — though not entirely — unique.

Maduro’s lawyers are expected to challenge the legality of his arrest, arguing that he is immune from prosecution as a sovereign head of state.

Panamanian strongman Manuel Noriega unsuccessfully tried the same defense after the US captured him during a military invasion in 1990. The United States, however, does not recognize Maduro as Venezuela’s legitimate head of state, particularly after a disputed 2024 reelection.

Venezuela’s interim president, Delcy Rodríguez, has demanded that the US return Maduro, who has long denied involvement in drug trafficking. Late Sunday, however, she struck a more conciliatory tone in a social media post, inviting collaboration with President Trump and calling for “respectful relations” with the United States.

Before his capture, Maduro and his allies claimed US hostility was driven by a desire to control Venezuela’s oil and mineral wealth.

The US seized Maduro and his wife in a military operation Saturday, capturing them at their home on a military base. Trump said the U.S. would “run” Venezuela temporarily, though Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Sunday Washington would not govern the country day to day, aside from enforcing an existing oil quarantine.

Trump also suggested he wants to extend American power further in the Western Hemisphere. Speaking aboard Air Force One, he called Colombian President Gustavo Petro “a sick man who likes making cocaine and selling it to the United States,” and warned that it would not continue “very long.”

He called on Rodríguez to grant the US “total access” to Venezuela or face consequences.

A 25-page indictment unsealed Saturday accuses Maduro and others of working with drug cartels to facilitate shipments of thousands of tons of cocaine into the United States. If convicted, they could face life in prison.

It was unclear as of Sunday whether Maduro had retained US legal counsel. He and his wife, Cilia Flores, have been under US sanctions for years, making it illegal for Americans to accept money from them without Treasury Department approval.

While the indictment alleges Venezuelan officials worked directly with the Tren de Aragua gang, a US intelligence assessment released in April found no coordination between the gang and the Venezuelan government.

Maduro, his wife and his son — who remains free — are charged along with Venezuela’s current interior and justice minister, a former interior and justice minister, and Héctor Rusthenford Guerrero Flores, an alleged Tren de Aragua leader who remains at large.

The indictment also accuses Maduro and his wife of ordering kidnappings, beatings and murders of people who owed them drug money or undermined their trafficking operation, including the killing of a local drug boss in Caracas.

Maduro’s wife is further accused of accepting hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes in 2007 to arrange a meeting between a “large-scale drug trafficker” and the director of Venezuela’s National Anti-Drug Office, leading to additional monthly bribes, according to the indictment.

Add as a preferred source on Google +