New York, Jan 5 (EFE).- Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro arrived on Monday with his wife, Cilia Flores, at the federal court in Manhattan, New York, for his first court appearance, scheduled for midday, two days after he was captured in Caracas and transferred to the United States.
Maduro and Flores were transferred from the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn to a field on the outskirts of the city, from where they were taken in a helicopter to a heliport near the federal court in southern New York.
Subsequently, they were taken in a convoy of five vehicles and under a strong police escort to the court, according to footage aired by US media.
The police, meanwhile, kept several streets blocked in the vicinity during the operation.
Maduro, guarded by agents of the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), descended with great difficulty and had to be helped to get into an armored vehicle that drove him to the courthouse.
Maduro was set to make his first appearance before US courts, after the Justice Department on Saturday made public an indictment against him for drug-related crimes, originally filed in 2020.
This expanded indictment reiterates charges against Maduro related to narco-terrorism conspiracy, conspiracy to import cocaine, conspiracy to possess machine guns and destructive devices, and conspiracy to use those weapons.
However, for the first time, the indictment names Maduro’s wife Cilia Flores for her alleged involvement in the coordination of meetings and logistics of the network.
According to prosecutors, this expands the scope of the case and supports the hypothesis that drug trafficking was part of a network organized from the highest levels of power in Venezuela.
Following the initial hearing, the court is expected to determine the next steps in the trial, including the conditions of detention and the judicial timeline of the case. EFE
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