Maduro, the Venezuelan President, has been detained in the USA since January, 2026 (Wikimedia Commons)On January 3 this year, a US military operation in Caracas forcibly brought Nicolás Maduro into American custody.
Maduro, the former Venezuelan President, now faces trial in the Southern District of New York under the Department of Justice’s 2020 charges which include narco-terrorism, cocaine trafficking conspiracy and firearms offences. The charges allege that Maduro led the “Cartel de los Soles” (designated as a Foreign Terrorist Organisation by the USA in 2025) and used Venezuela’s state apparatus to flood the US with drugs.
On September 3, his counsel moved before Judge Alvin Hellerstein to dismiss the indictment. The argument hinged on head-of-state immunity, a doctrine, they said, rested on “the perfect equality and absolute independence of sovereigns.”