A US judge questioned yesterday whether the US can bar Venezuela from funding Nicolás Maduro’s legal defence without violating his US constitutional rights, but stopped short of dismissing drug-trafficking charges against the ousted Venezuelan president facing trial in New York.
Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, wore beige prison garb to the hearing in Manhattan federal court more than two months after US military forces captured them in a surprise raid on Caracas and ferried them to New York.
Maduro, 63, and Flores, 69, have pleaded not guilty to charges including narcoterrorism conspiracy and have been jailed in Brooklyn pending trial.
They had asked US District Judge Alvin Hellerstein to dismiss the charges, saying their inability to rely on Venezuelan public funds due to US sanctions on Venezuela was interfering with their right to have a lawyer of their choosing under the Sixth Amendment of the US Constitution.
All criminal defendants in the US have constitutional rights regardless of whether they are US citizens.
Their lawyers have said Maduro and Flores cannot afford to pay their defence fees on their own.
In court, prosecutor Kyle Wirshba said the US sanctions blocking the payments were based on legitimate national security and foreign policy interests.
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