Venezuela’s ousted president Nicolas Maduro and his wife will go on trial in the United States in June 2027, a court has ruled, after the US military abducted them in a stunning nighttime raid in January.
During a roughly 20-minute hearing on Wednesday, Judge Alvin Hellerstein set the trial date for June 1 next year following a joint request from prosecutors and defence counsel.
Protesters with signs reading “Free President Maduro” gathered outside the Manhattan courthouse waving Venezuelan flags.
The former leader, 63, and wife Cilia Flores have been held in a Brooklyn jail for more than seven months after pleading not guilty to federal drug trafficking and firearms charges.
American commandos snatched the pair from their compound in Caracas on January 3. The lightning operation combined naval, air and ground forces, abducting the president who had led Venezuela since 2013.
Maduro has declared himself a “prisoner of war” and denied the four counts he faces: “narco-terrorism” conspiracy, cocaine importation conspiracy, possession of machine guns and destructive devices and conspiracy to possess machine guns and destructive devices.
