Ousted Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has urged a United States judge to dismiss the criminal drug trafficking charges against him, arguing he should be immune from prosecution as the head of a sovereign country. Maduro’s lawyer, Barry Pollack, made the appeal in a Manhattan district court on Wednesday. His legal team has petitioned District Judge Alvin Hellerstein to dismiss the case, which will test the willingness of US courts to apply international law to criminal cases.
Maduro was abducted and imprisoned on January 3, after US President Donald Trump authorised a military raid in Caracas. The former Venezuelan leader, who has been held in a Brooklyn federal jail, has pleaded not guilty and is scheduled to go on trial on June 1, 2027, if his effort to dismiss the case is unsuccessful. The principle that sitting heads of state are immune from prosecution abroad is a longstanding tenet of international law, seen as fundamental to diplomacy.
Judge Hellerstein had given Pollack a Wednesday deadline to file his motion to dismiss the case. Pollack has argued that Hellerstein lacks jurisdiction, both because sovereign heads of state enjoy complete immunity and because the acts that Maduro is accused of would have been part of his official duties. Pollack added that Maduro was falsely accused and “vehemently denies” the allegations.
A spokesperson for the Manhattan US Attorney’s office, which brought the charges, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Legal experts have told the news agency that Maduro faces an uphill battle. Washington has not recognised Maduro as Venezuela’s president for years, due to disputed elections.
Courts tend to defer to the US president and his cabinet in disputes over who is recognised as a foreign country’s leader. US criminal cases involving heads of foreign states are extremely rare, but precedent offers little encouragement for Maduro. In 1990, a federal judge in Miami rejected former Panamanian military leader Manuel Noriega’s attempt to assert head-of-state immunity, in part because he never officially held the title of president.
The US stopped recognising Maduro in 2019, when he was inaugurated for a second time after a 2018 election that critics say was rigged. Washington also called his 2024 re-election fraudulent. Maduro says both votes were fair and has long accused the US of seeking his ouster to gain control of the South American country’s oil wealth.
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