Nicolas Maduro to stand trial on US drug trafficking charges in June 2027 – National
Venezuela’s former president Nicolás Maduro and his wife will go on trial on drug-trafficking charges next June, a judge said Wednesday, as their lawyers continue to challenge the US military action that ousted them from power.
Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein set a trial date of June 1 at the request of attorneys for both sides. Under the approved plan, defense lawyers will begin filing motions in early September to contest the case and the couple will return to court on Nov. 17.
Maduro, 63, and his wife, Cilia Flores, 69, have been held in a Brooklyn jail since US troops seized them from their Caracas home in the middle of the night and brought them to New York in early January.
No one spoke during Wednesday’s 15-minute hearing as each sat separately at a table surrounded by their lawyers. Both pleaded not guilty. They face possible prison terms if a jury admits they were part of a conspiracy to smuggle cocaine into the US.
When he entered the court, Maduro, who was being watched, greeted the judges’ staff and shook hands with his lawyers and his wife. Strikingly thin in a red prison suit and sporting a bushy moustache, he appeared happy, smiling and chatting with his lawyer. He listened to the Spanish translation of the proceedings through headphones and then folded his hands in front of him in prayer. He had a black pen on his right fingers and kept writing notes on a white pad.
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As deputy marshals led him out, he waved to someone in the gallery.
President Donald Trump’s administration has defended Maduro’s raid as a “legal operation” in a criminal case that began six years ago. Maduro has called himself a prisoner of war and his abduction as kidnapping.
U.S. prosecutors say Maduro conspired to smuggle thousands of tons of cocaine into the U.S. by working with Venezuelan law enforcement to help drug victims.
“I am innocent. I am an honorable man, the president of my country,” he said in Spanish during his trial in January.
Maduro’s lawyer, Barry Pollack, said he expects to challenge the legality of Maduro’s “military captivity.”
During the trial on Wednesday, Pollack said that he will first argue the case on the grounds of assertion because if that is successful, Maduro will not continue to prosecute the case.
The lawyers said there are legal issues that the court should address before the trial begins.
Maduro and Flores never asked to be released on bail.
© 2026 The Canadian Press
