I heard Nicolas Maduro earlier than I noticed him. The jangle of his ankle shackles alerting a packed courtroom to the presence of the captured Venezuelan president proper outdoors.
It was precisely noon on the twenty sixth flooring of the federal courtroom in New York, with the massive home windows providing sweeping views of the Manhattan skyline and the Hudson river past.
Round 50 journalists, a couple of dozen members of the general public and a handful of law enforcement officials from the Drug Enforcement Company, the physique accountable for constructing the case towards him, waited in anticipation within the public gallery.
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Nicolas Maduro and his spouse Cilia Flores attend their arraignment. Pic: Reuters
Three days in the past, Maduro had been having fun with the opulence of his palace in Caracas. Now he’s going through the total power of the US justice system, going from president to defendant in a single lengthy weekend.
He was sporting prison-issued blue and orange garments, and was introduced into courtroom by two US marshals. He made intense eye contact with sure individuals within the courtroom, wishing them “Glad New 12 months” three or 4 occasions. He shook fingers with the marshals and defence legal professionals sitting on both aspect of him.
His spouse, Cilia Flores, the previous first woman who can also be indicted, was in courtroom with him, sitting two seats away from her husband. She appeared to have bruising on her proper eye and was sporting a bandage.
A car carrying Maduro drives after his US courtroom look. Pic: Reuters
Preliminary courtroom hearings are sometimes very procedural and bland, however this was something however. Maduro took each alternative to claim his innocence and demand he was nonetheless the president of Venezuela. When requested to verify his identification, he informed the choose he had been “captured” and “kidnapped,” earlier than the choose interrupted him and requested him solely to reply along with his title.
Earlier than the listening to began, the general public gallery was warned by a courtroom attendant to stay seated and silent during the listening to and to not try to talk to the defendant.
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However there was an astounding second proper on the finish of the listening to. As Maduro was being shuffled out of the courtroom by the US marshals, a person sporting a swimsuit within the public gallery stood up and started shouting at him in Spanish. That they had a terse trade, with Maduro staring down the person.
That man, I discovered later, is 33-year-old Pedro Rojas, a Venezuelan in exile. I spoke with him outdoors courtroom and he informed me he’d been a political prisoner in Venezuela for 4 months in 2019 and was now residing within the US state of Georgia.
Pedro Rojas, Venezuelan dissident
“I informed Nicolas Maduro Moros that he pays,” he informed me. “That the US of America will deliver him to justice. That beginning at present, 5 January 2026, the golden age of Venezuela begins.
“Nicolas Maduro informed me that he was harmless and that he was a person of God. I informed him that we’re additionally males of God, as a result of we’ve got by no means attacked the Venezuelan Church, as he has accomplished on quite a few events.”
Demonstrators outdoors courtroom Pic: Reuters
After the listening to concluded, Maduro, in a motorcade, was taken again to jail. His subsequent listening to set for March. The implications of his seize, unknown.
