An American judge questioned, this Thursday (26), whether the US can prevent Venezuela from paying for Nicolás Maduro’s defense lawyers without violating his American constitutional rights.
The judge stopped short of rejecting the narcoterrorism charges against the Venezuelan leader, who is on trial in New York.
Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, appeared in Manhattan wearing beige prison uniforms, more than two months after they were captured by the American military in a surprise operation in Caracas and taken to New York.
Maduro, 63, and Flores, 69, have pleaded not guilty to the charges, which include , and are being held in Brooklyn awaiting trial.
They asked U.S. District Judge Alvin Hellerstein to dismiss the charges, claiming that Venezuela’s inability to use public funds due to U.S. sanctions was interfering with their right to counsel of their choice as guaranteed by the Sixth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
All defendants in criminal cases in the United States have constitutional rights, regardless of whether they are American citizens or not.
Their lawyers stated that Maduro and Flores are unable to bear the costs of their defense on their own.
In court testimony, prosecutor Kyle Wirshba stated that American sanctions blocking payments are based on legitimate national security and foreign policy interests.
During his first term in the White House, Trump intensified sanctions against Venezuela on the grounds that Maduro’s government was corrupt and undermining democratic institutions. Washington considered Maduro’s re-election in 2018 fraudulent.
Judge Hellerstein expressed skepticism toward this argument, noting that the US had eased sanctions against Venezuela since Maduro’s ouster.
“The defendant is here, Flores is here. They pose no additional threat to national security,” said Hellerstein, a judge appointed to the bench by Democratic President Bill Clinton.
“The right that is in question, primordial in relation to other rights, is the right to constitutional legal assistance”, he added.
Attorney Pollack, who previously served as a representative of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, said he wants to withdraw from the case if the judge does not dismiss the charges and the Venezuelan government cannot.
It was unclear how much Pollack is charging Maduro for his services. Pollack did not respond to a request for comment.
This Thursday morning (26), US President Donald Trump told reporters that new cases would be opened against Maduro, without giving details.
The capture of Nicolás Maduro by the USA
US forces captured Maduro and Flores in a surprise raid at their Caracas residence on January 3 and took them to New York to face drug trafficking charges.
Prosecutors argue that because the US has not recognized Maduro as Venezuela’s legitimate president since 2019, he and Flores should not expect the US government to allow Venezuela to pay their legal fees.
Prosecutors say Maduro and Flores can have public defenders if they are unable to hire their own lawyers.
Wirshba said Maduro and Flores could challenge the sanctions by filing a separate lawsuit against the Treasury Department, which is responsible for enforcing the sanctions.
Hellerstein asked if he could order the Treasury Department to modify sanctions to allow the Venezuelan government to pay legal costs.
Wirshba responded that Hellerstein could not do this, as foreign policy was the responsibility of the Executive Branch, not the Judiciary.
Narcoterrorism legislation has had limited success in trials.
Maduro faces four criminal charges, including narco-terrorism conspiracy, which criminalizes drug trafficking to finance activities considered terrorist by the United States.
The law has rarely been tested at trial, and two of the four convictions were overturned due to issues related to witness credibility, according to a Reuters analysis of court records.
Maduro rejected those accusations, along with allegations of his participation in drug trafficking, as pretextual justifications for what he called the U.S. desire to take control of the OPEC-member South American nation’s vast oil reserves.
Relations between Caracas and Washington have improved since Delcy Rodríguez, Maduro’s former vice president, assumed the interim presidency after his capture.
