If convicted on all four federal charges, ousted Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro faces a sentence of 20 years to life in prison. In the hearing scheduled in a few minutes in the federal courtroom in Lower Manhattan, Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, will be read the charges and their rights as defendants. It is almost certain that the judge will confirm Maduro’s detention without the possibility of release on bail while his lawyers will contest the arrest of a president of a sovereign state.
Here are the charges
The first charge concerns the accusation of narco-terrorism, the most serious, which involves Maduro and two others of the five co-defendants, but not his wife. The main indictment alleges that Maduro, together with current Interior Minister Diosdado Cabelllo Rondon and former Interior Minister Ramond Rodriguez Chacin, conspired to “knowingly” distribute cocaine to terrorist organizations as they were defined by the United States. (AGI)
The indictment names the FARC, Colombia’s left-wing rebel fighter group, the Mexican Sinaloa drug cartel and the northeastern cartel known as Los Zetas. Among the organizations cited in the twenty-five pages of the act there is also the Venezuelan criminal gang Tren de Aragua. This crime, if proven, can carry a mandatory minimum sentence of twenty years in prison.
The second charge is that of conspiracy to import cocaine, which is triggered when at least five kilos of cocaine are brought into the United States and carries a mandatory minimum sentence of ten years. Counts three and four are related to weapons offenses and charge all defendants with conspiracy and possession of machine guns and explosive devices. Crimes committed in connection with drug trafficking carry additional mandatory sentences. Given that Maduro is 63 years old, even a sentence of forty or fifty years would be equivalent to a life sentence.