SerpApi.Org
A US judge on Wednesday set a 1 June 2027 trial date for Venezuela's ousted president Nicolas Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, on drug trafficking charges.
Neither Maduro nor his wife spoke during Wednesday's 15-minute hearing.
Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein set the trial date at the request of lawyers for both sides. Under the agreed timetable, defence lawyers will begin filing motions in early September challenging the indictment.
During the hearing, Maduro’s lawyer, Barry Pollack, said he would first challenge the indictment on sovereign immunity grounds. Pollack, has previously said he expects to contest the legality of Maduro’s “military abduction.”
The lawyers have said there are complex legal defences that the court must address before a trial can begin.
Meanwhile, outside the court, demonstrators held signs in support of the ousted president and his wife.
Maduro and Flores have been held in a Brooklyn jail since a US military operation in January, awaiting trial on drug trafficking, firearms and other charges.
The couple was captured by US forces in a nighttime raid in January. Both have pleaded not guilty and face possible life sentences if convicted of conspiring to traffic cocaine into the United States.
“I am not guilty. I am a decent man, the constitutional president of my country,” Maduro said at his arraignment in January.
US President Donald Trump's administration has described the raid as a “surgical law enforcement operation” in a criminal case first brought six years ago. Maduro, however, has described himself as a “prisoner of war” and his capture as a kidnapping.
Prosecutors allege that Maduro conspired to traffic thousands of tonnes of cocaine into the United States by colluding with Venezuelan law enforcement officials to assist drug kingpins.
Maduro and Flores have not asked to be released on bail.
