For his second public appearance since his capture by American forces, Nicolas Maduro appeared this Thursday before a New York court.
Shortly after 4 a.m., a large police convoy drove the 63-year-old former head of state and his wife Cilia Flores, 69, from Brooklyn jail where they are being held to the Southern District of Manhattan federal court, a federal prison known for its unsanitary conditions and poor management. faulty.
“Enough of sanctions and bombs”
Alone in his cell, without access to the internet and newspapers, the man some of his fellow inmates call “the president” reads the Bible, according to those around him. He also does “exercise,” said his son, MP Nicolas Maduro Guerra, known as “Nicolasito” (little Nicolas), from Caracas.
Nicolas Maduro has not spoken since a first hearing before the same court on January 5, during which he and his wife were formally charged with drug trafficking, the official reason for their capture. Combative, he then presented himself as “the president of the Republic of Venezuela” in office, “kidnapped” by the United States, therefore defining himself as a “prisoner of war”.
In front of his prison, dozens of opponents and supporters of the former head of state gathered, a few meters from each other. “We are desperately seeking any form of justice for everything we have been through,” Carlos Egana, a 30-year-old Venezuelan educator who holds up a grimacing mannequin bearing the likeness of Nicolas, told AFP. Maduro. “And the fact that this is happening, whether here in the United States or elsewhere, is a reason to rejoice.”
Not far from them, activists from small left-wing organizations brandish signs hostile to Donald Trump’s policies: “From Venezuela to Iran, enough sanctions and bombs!” A brief scuffle broke out in the morning between members of the two groups, until the police intervened, noted an AFP journalist.
During debates which lasted barely more than an hour, the judge in charge of the case made it known that he did not intend to accede to a request to drop the proceedings from his lawyers, around a question relating to the payment of their fees.
Our file on Nicolas Maduro
Prosecuted in the United States on four counts, including narcoterrorism, the former head of state is accused of having protected and promoted vast drug trafficking, in particular by allying himself with guerrilla movements and criminal cartels considered “terrorist” by Washington.
