The president of Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro, appeared this Thursday for the second time in a New York court after being forcibly kidnapped by US troops in a military raid in early January that included bombings against Caracas and other cities.
In the hearing, which is being held in Manhattan federal court, federal judge Alvin Hellerstein rejected the request by Maduro’s defense to dismiss the charges against him due to the impossibility of meeting the costs of the process, after his accounts were blocked by the United States Government. “I am not going to dismiss the case,” the magistrate concluded.
Hellerstein asked Deputy Prosecutor Kyle Wirshba to find out if Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, have other ways to cover the expenses, after the Venezuelan Government was also not authorized to finance the litigation.
The judge himself acknowledged that “it is most likely” that, if they exist, these funds “are susceptible to confiscation or are subject to sanctions,” and wondered whether the court can order the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) to lift those restrictions.
However, the prosecutor questioned whether the court has that authority and explained that the appropriate path would be for Maduro to file a civil lawsuit to challenge the sanctions, according to CNN.
The deputy prosecutor also insisted that Maduro and his wife not be allowed to use funds from the Venezuelan State to pay for their defense. “The defendants are looting Venezuela’s wealth,” argued Wirshba, who warned that this possibility would “undermine” the effectiveness of the sanctions.
🇺🇸🇻🇪 | BREAKING NEWS: Sketches of the second hearing against Nicolás Maduro:
▪️Charges for narcoterrorism, conspiracy to import cocaine and possession of weapons of war remain in force.
▪️The judge rejected the defense’s request to dismiss the case, so… pic.twitter.com/Lslp4DjNes
— World Alert (@AlertaMundoNews) March 26, 2026
Previously, Wirshba himself had defended that sanctions are a tool of the United States Government “to influence foreign policy or national security,” which is why he considered it justified to limit access to those resources. However, the judge ruled out that Maduro currently represents a danger, given that he remains detained.
“The accused is here. Flores is here. They do not represent any threat to national security. I don’t see it,” said the magistrate after listening to the arguments of the couple’s lawyer, Barry Pollack, who stressed that they do not have their own funds to pay for the defense.
However, the defense maintained that they could use resources available in the Venezuelan State. “The court should not appoint counsel for someone who has assets in resources that could be used to fund their own defense,” Pollack said.
For his part, his son, deputy Nicolás Maduro, called to “raise our voices” against a trial that, as he maintained, “in its origin is illegitimate and illegal,” and asked Venezuelans to “fight for truth, justice and peace.”
“Even though they are powerful in the media, they try to impose narratives, even though they try to agree on the truth, their truth, which is the lie, we, with the real truth, let us build our own model in peace,” he stated during an event in Caracas, where he stressed that “we are not criminals.”
On January 3, US military forces launched a large-scale attack on Venezuela and forcibly captured Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, and then transported them to New York. The US attacks shocked the international community and provoked a wave of condemnation and great concern around the world.
The couple has remained imprisoned at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, New York, since they were captured in Caracas.
Protest in support of Maduro
Protesters gathered outside the courthouse, which was heavily guarded by law enforcement officers, chanting slogans and demanding that Maduro be released immediately.
🇺🇲🇻🇪 #BreakingMinute 🇻🇪🇺🇲
🔴 Protesters protest in the vicinity of the New York Court to demand the release of Maduro and Cilia Flores within the framework of the second hearing.#USA #Venezuela #Urgent
pic.twitter.com/gFL8aBU1gp— 𝙋𝙤𝙡𝙞𝙖𝙣𝙖𝙡𝙞𝙩𝙞𝙘𝙖 (@polianalitica) March 26, 2026
“We are here today to stand in solidarity with Nicolás Maduro and Cilia Flores,” Jacoe Muldoon, a young protester, told Xinhua. “We believe that the accusations should be dismissed and that they should be released.”
Another protester indicated that the United States does not have the right to kidnap the elected leader in another country, adding that the Venezuelan people unite to face the challenges.
In Muldoon’s opinion, the situation in Venezuela and the situation in Iran are clearly connected as the United States is making incursions into other countries to seize the world’s resources.
“More and more countries are opposing the United States, which is trying to maintain its hegemony over the world,” he said.
New threats from Trump against Maduro
Before this second hearing took place, the President of the United States, Donald Trump, announced during a cabinet meeting at the White House that “other charges will be filed” and that he assumes that “there will be other trials because he has been sued for a fraction of the things he has done.”
“Other cases will be presented, as you probably already know,” added Trump, who also accused Maduro of having “killed a lot of people” and having “emptied” Venezuelan prisons in the United States.
GS with information from Europa Press and Xinhua
