The ousted Venezuelan president will appear in a US court on Thursday accused of crimes including narcoterrorism, a matter that has rarely been tested in court and whose record of success is limited.
The 63-year-old Chavista has governed Venezuela since 2013 by US special forces on January 3, an operation in which his wife, the lawyer, was also arrested. Already on the 5th of that month, he was transferred to New York, of all the charges brought against him.
Today, the now inmate will try to convince the judge that the US Government is interfering in his ability to defend himself against charges related to narcoterrorism and that the case should be dismissed. Maduro’s lawyer, Barry Pollack, stated last month that if the US does not allow the Venezuelan government to pay his legal fees.
Pollack claimed that the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control granted and later revoked a license allowing the Venezuelan government to pay his legal fees.
Both the Maduros and the Venezuelan government are sanctioned by the United States, so anyone requesting payment must obtain a license to avoid violating US sanctions laws.
According to the lawyer, the revocation violates Maduro’s constitutional right to defend himself against the charges. Flores de Maduro’s lawyer joined the motion. If the judge does not dismiss the case, they request a hearing to analyze the Government’s decision-making process.
The legal background
The 2006 law in question to seek returns to Maduro, enacted to combat drug trafficking linked to activities that the United States considers terrorism, has only led to four convictions at trial, according to an analysis of federal court records; two of them were later annulled due to issues related to the credibility of the witnesses.
This spotty record highlights what could be a key challenge for the prosecution in the Maduro case: convincing the jury that evidence provided by cooperating informants credibly establishes a conscious link between alleged drug trafficking crimes and terrorism.
“The lesson of these two cases is not that the law against narcoterrorism is unworkable,” said Alamdar Hamdani, a partner at the Bracewell law firm and former federal prosecutor in Houston. “The lesson is that the most demanding element of the law – proving the accused’s knowledge of the link to terrorism – requires a quality of evidence and a level of procedural diligence that leaves no room for institutional deficiencies, spelling errors or uncritical acceptance of what witnesses testify,” he added.
Prosecutors have not yet revealed who will testify against Maduro. However, a former Venezuelan general accused along with Maduro told the same agency that he is willing to cooperate.
Former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro attends his court appearance in Manhattan, New York, on January 5, 2026.
The accusations
Congress created it 20 years ago to pursue drug traffickers who finance activities that the United States considers terrorism. Since then, 83 people, including Maduro, have been accused of raping her. Thirty-one people pleaded guilty to narcoterrorism or lesser charges, eight are awaiting trial and dozens are not in U.S. custody, according to the review.
The conviction reversals do not affect Maduro’s case, and the defendants in those cases faced additional charges that were not overturned. The former president also faces three other charges, including .
Maduro is accused of leading a conspiracy in which officials of his government helped transport cocaine through Venezuela in collaboration with drug traffickers, including the , which the United States classified as a terrorist organization between 1997 and 2021. Maduro and the other accused officials have always denied any wrongdoing, claiming that the US charges are part of an imperialist conspiracy to harm Venezuela.
His attorney, Barry Pollack, did not respond to requests for comment on the narcoterrorism law trial record or potential witnesses against him. A spokesman for the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York declined to comment on these matters.
A broad definition
Narcoterrorism carries a mandatory minimum sentence of 20 years, double the minimum sentence for regular drug trafficking. Both penalties can result in life imprisonment.
The narcoterrorism law defines terrorism as premeditated and politically motivated violence against non-combatants. “If you take the legal definition of terrorism and terrorist activity, it can be pretty generalized to the type of activity we’re talking about,” said Shane Stansbury, a professor at Duke University School of Law and former federal prosecutor.
To convict Maduro, prosecutors must show that he knew that the drug trafficking he allegedly facilitated generated economic benefit for a group that carried out activities that the US considered terrorism, even if it had other objectives.
“It doesn’t have to be the motivation,” said Artie McConnell, a former federal prosecutor and current partner at the BakerHostetler law firm. In the first narcoterrorism trial in 2008, an Afghan with alleged ties to the Taliban was convicted of helping a Taliban informant buy opium and heroin. However, in 2021, a judge dismissed the narcoterrorism charge after an appeals court ruled that his lawyer had not adequately rebutted the only witness linking him to the Taliban.
In another case, the jury failed to reach a verdict in the 2011 trial of an alleged Afghan drug trafficker. He was convicted in a second trial in 2012, but the narcoterrorism charge was dismissed in 2015 after prosecutors acknowledged that a U.S. government agency considered the cooperating witness linking him to the Taliban an “inventor.”
The 2015 narcoterrorism conviction of a Colombian for attempting to ship cocaine for the FARC and attempting to purchase weapons for the group has stood.
A fourth narcoterrorism trial resulted in a guilty verdict earlier this week.
Witnesses, key
Legal experts say the government’s case against Maduro could include testimony from two former Venezuelan generals charged alongside him in 2020: and . Both have pleaded guilty Both were indicted on charges related to their ties to the FARC, but neither agreed to cooperate when pleading guilty.
In a telephone interview from the federal prison in Cumberland, Maryland, Alcalá said he was willing to cooperate. However, he noted that prosecutors had previously insisted that he admit his involvement in drug trafficking, which he denies, as a condition of cooperating. “I cannot, in order to reduce my sentence, declare myself a drug trafficker when I am not one,” he declared.
Alcalá retired from the Venezuelan military shortly after Maduro took power in 2013. He subsequently became a staunch critic of Maduro’s government.
Asked if the charges against Maduro were true, Alcalá responded that he believed there was “some basis” and that he thought Maduro had ties to a drug trafficker imprisoned in Caracas. He did not offer details.
Alcalá, 64, is serving a sentence of almost 22 years in prison after pleading guilty in 2023 to providing material support to the FARC. At trial, he admitted to having supplied weapons to the group – claiming he did so under orders from the former Venezuelan president – but denied helping drug traffickers transport cocaine.
Carvajal’s sentencing is scheduled for April 16. His lawyer declined to comment on whether he would cooperate with prosecutors.
