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Maduro pleads not guilty after deadly US raid in Venezuela
Nicolás Maduro has pleaded not guilty to narcoterrorism charges in a federal court in Manhattan after a United States special forces raid in Venezuela left at least 80 people dead and triggered widespread international condemnation. The Venezuelan president, captured along with his wife Cilia Flores during the US operation known as Absolute Resolve, told the court on Monday, “I am innocent. I am not guilty. I am a decent man, the president of my country,” as he rejected the allegations against him.
In the early hours of 3 January, US Army Delta Force units, supported by CIA operatives and more than 150 aircraft, struck Venezuelan military targets across Caracas at around 2 a.m. local time. President Donald Trump announced hours later that Maduro had been taken to the amphibious assault ship USS Iwo Jima and then flown to New York, where he now faces charges including narcoterrorism conspiracy and cocaine importation. Venezuelan authorities reported that the dead include both military personnel and civilians, among them an 80 year old woman killed when a US airstrike hit a residential building in Catia La Mar. Cuba said 32 of its military and intelligence personnel were killed in the operation and declared two days of national mourning.
In parallel with the political and legal fallout from Maduro’s capture, Venezuela’s energy sector is facing a deepening crisis as tankers scramble to evade a tightening US naval blockade. At least 16 oil tankers under sanctions have left Venezuelan ports since Saturday in an effort to slip past the embargo imposed by Trump in mid December. The vessels have been using deceptive tactics that include switching off their tracking signals, broadcasting false ship names and falsifying their positions to appear in distant waters. Four tankers were detected sailing under fake identities, including the Aquila II, which was transmitting the name “Cape Balder” while claiming to be in the Red Sea.
According to internal communications from state oil company PDVSA, these departures took place without the authorization of Venezuela’s interim government. Most of the tankers are large crude carriers that usually sail to China, collectively transporting about 12 million barrels of Venezuelan crude and fuel. Industry sources with access to government projections warn that the country’s oil output could collapse from about 1.2 million barrels per day to fewer than 300,000 barrels by the end of the year if the blockade remains in place. The only company still exporting Venezuelan oil to the United States Gulf Coast is Chevron, which operates under a special US license.
The military raid has also accelerated a political transition in Caracas and sharpened diplomatic rifts across Latin America. Venezuela’s Supreme Court appointed Vice President Delcy Rodríguez as interim president on Saturday. Trump said Secretary of State Marco Rubio had spoken with Rodríguez and described her as “courteous,” claiming she would cooperate with Washington, although she later insisted that Venezuela would “never again be a colony of any empire.” Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva issued the region’s strongest rebuke, calling the operation “a very serious affront to the sovereignty of Venezuela and an extremely dangerous precedent.” In a joint statement, six Latin American countries, Brazil, Spain, Chile, Colombia, Mexico and Uruguay, rejected “unilateral military actions carried out on Venezuelan territory.”
Trump has declared that the United States will “lead” Venezuela until a “safe, proper and wise transition” takes place and has promised that US oil companies will invest billions of dollars to rebuild the country’s energy infrastructure. Maduro’s next court appearance is scheduled for 17 March, a hearing that is set to become a focal point in a case that intertwines US counter narcotics policy, military intervention and the future of Venezuela’s political order and oil industry.
