A legal dispute has ended after the United States agreed to allow the Venezuelan government to pay for the defense of the country’s constitutional president, Nicolás Maduro, who has been detained for more than three months in a federal prison in New York.
Federal prosecutors informed the judge overseeing the case that the Treasury Department agreed to modify a license to allow payments to the lawyers of Maduro and his wife, Congresswoman Cilia Flores, who have pleaded not guilty to the charges against them.
Both were kidnapped and taken to the Brooklyn penitentiary following the military operation ordered by President Donald Trump on January 3, which resulted in more than 100 deaths, including 32 Cuban combatants.
“The amended licenses authorize defense attorneys to receive payments from the Venezuelan government under certain conditions,” prosecutors told the judge last night, adding that the payments must be made from available funds “starting March 5, 2026.”
Late last month, Maduro’s lawyer, Barry Pollack, claimed that the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) granted and subsequently revoked a license allowing Caracas to pay his legal fees.
The legal team had previously asked Judge Alvin Hellerstein to dismiss the charges, arguing that the U.S. government was obstructing its ability to defend itself against the criminal charges related to a plot that analysts and solidarity groups consider a political fabrication.
Pollack stated that he will challenge the legality of Maduro’s detention and argues that he enjoys immunity due to his position.
Having not resigned, Nicolás Maduro remains, by constitution, the president of the South American nation. His detention, like that of his wife, will continue at the Metropolitan Detention Center (MDC) in Brooklyn.
As Trump said at the time, he watched the operation, which he called “brilliant,” in real time from his luxurious Mar-a-Lago residence, as if it were a television program. And so, to the astonishment, shock, and outrage of much of the world, the head of state of a sovereign nation was kidnapped in the middle of the night.
In a prescient manner, the late Venezuelan leader Hugo Chávez warned in 2005 about the United States’ plans to criminalize him and justify an intervention in Venezuela. He pointed out that an operation was underway and that they would even try to bring charges against him for drug trafficking, the alleged crime for which they intend to prosecute Maduro in the United States.
[ SOURCE: PRENSA LATINA ]
