Maduro and five others are charged in the US with a number of crimes, including ‘narco-terrorism’.
Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, who was abducted from Caracas along with First Lady Cilia Flores, appeared in a United States court on Monday, facing a range of charges linked to the Donald Trump administration’s accusations describing him as a “narco-terrorist”.
US troops abducted the couple on Saturday and flew them by helicopter to a US warship – and then to New York, where they are facing a trial on multiple US charges, including drug trafficking and weapons charges. But Maduro was not charged with fentanyl trafficking. The Trump administration’s claim that Venezuela is linked to the fentanyl crisis in the US is misleading, as Venezuela is not known to produce the synthetic narcotic. Fentanyl, which the US dubbed a “weapon of mass destruction” last month, is a major driver of overdose deaths in the US.
Nicolas Maduro is jailed in New York hours after his US capture [Photo: X]
Here is everything you need to know about what the US is accusing
Maduro of.
Where were Maduro and his wife indicted?
The indictment was filed in the Southern District of New York under seal before Christmas Day, December 25.
The document, which was unsealed on Saturday, accuses the abducted Venezuelan president of heading a “corrupt, illegitimate government” propped up by an extensive drug-trafficking operation that flooded the US with thousands of tonnes of cocaine.
In the indictment, Maduro is charged alongside his wife, his son, and three others.
The charges are the same as those in an earlier indictment brought against him in a Manhattan federal court in 2020, during the first term of US President Donald Trump.
What are the charges?
The main charges brought against Maduro and his identified associates relate to “narco-terrorism” and conspiracy to import cocaine. The offences carry potential maximum sentences of life imprisonment under US law.
In the indictment, charges are on four counts: “narco-terrorism” conspiracy, cocaine importation conspiracy, possession of machineguns and destructive devices, and conspiracy to possess machineguns and destructive devices.
The US officials accuse Maduro and others of working hand in hand with the region’s largest drug trafficking groups, including in Colombia and Mexico.
The US’s own data shows that Venezuela is not among the world’s major drug producers. Trump has recently claimed that Maduro is behind the Tren de Aragua gang that Washington has proscribed as a “Foreign Terrorist Organisation (FTO)”.
But US intelligence agencies have said there is no evidence that Maduro is linked to
Tren de Aragua.
What are the accusations against Maduro?
In the indictment, the US law authorities have focused on Venezuela’s decades-long role in the cocaine trade.
“For over 25 years, leaders of Venezuela have abused their positions of public trust and corrupted once-legitimate institutions to import tons of cocaine into the United States,” the indictment’s introduction reads.
It identifies Maduro as “at the forefront of that corruption”, claiming he aimed to “transport thousands of tons of cocaine to the United States”.
“[Maduro] allows cocaine-fueled corruption to flourish for his own benefit, for the benefit of members of his ruling regime, and for the benefit of his family members,” the indictment notes.
The document also alleges that Maduro “provided Venezuelan diplomatic passports to drug traffickers and facilitated diplomatic cover for planes used by money launderers to repatriate drug proceeds from Mexico to Venezuela.”
But experts have questioned the charges against Maduro – which appear to stem from allegations that Venezuelan territory is used for drug trafficking.
“It has really serious implications,” Charles Shapiro, a former US ambassador to Venezuela, told Al Jazeera. “If they read the indictment that the Southern District of New York issued against Nicolas Maduro and Cilia Flores, his wife, you could probably use that same indictment against any prime minister or president in the world where there’s drug trafficking going on inside the country.”
By Yashraj Sharma
… Source: aljazeera.com/news
