Trial date set in US for Venezuela’s Nicolas Maduro in drug trafficking case

A trial date of June 1 has been set for Nicolas Maduro to face drug trafficking charges along with his wife, as his lawyers continue to object to the US military action that snatched the Venezuelan president from power and took him to New York.

Maduro, 63, and his wife Cilia Flores, 69, have been held at a Brooklyn jail since US forces seized them from their Caracas home in a middle-of-the-night raid and brought them to New York in early January.

Neither spoke during Wednesday’s 15-minute hearing. Both have pleaded not guilty.

They face potential life prison sentences if a jury agrees that they were part of a conspiracy to send cocaine into the US.

Judge Alvin K Hellerstein set the trial date at the request of lawyers on both sides. Under the approved schedule, defence lawyers will begin filing motions in early September to challenge the indictment.

President Donald Trump’s administration has defended the raid as a “surgical law enforcement operation” in a criminal case first brought six years ago.

Maduro has called himself a prisoner of war and his capture a kidnapping.

US prosecutors say Maduro carried out a conspiracy to move thousands of tons of cocaine into the US by colluding with Venezuelan law enforcement to help drug kingpins.

“I am not guilty. I am a decent man, the constitutional president of my country,” he said in Spanish at his arraignment in January.

Maduro’s lawyer, Barry Pollack, has said he expects to contest the legality of Maduro’s “military abduction”.

During Wednesday’s hearing, Mr Pollack said he will first challenge the indictment on sovereign immunity grounds because if that is successful, Maduro will not have to continue litigating the case afterwards.

The lawyers have said there are complex legal defences that the court must address before a trial can begin.

Maduro and Flores have not asked to be released on bail.