Former Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and his wife look to end drug charges on immunity grounds

Former Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, have asked a US judge to dismiss the drug trafficking indictment against them, citing diplomatic immunity as the leader and first lady of a foreign country. According to their lawyers, Maduro and Flores are immune from prosecution in US courts, and only Venezuelan courts have the right to prosecute them.

Maduro, who has been held in a Brooklyn federal jail since his seizure by US forces from his Caracas home, has pleaded not guilty and is scheduled to go on trial on June 1, 2027, if his effort to dismiss the case is unsuccessful. His lawyers argue that it is a long-standing tenet of international law that sitting heads of state are immune from prosecution abroad.

A judge has set oral arguments for November 17 on motions to dismiss the indictment. Maduro's lawyers have written that no American court has ever presided over the criminal trial of a foreign leader who was recognized by their own country as the sitting head of state at the time the charges were brought.

Brief written by urgent.news from Euronews, Associated Press, South China Morning Post, Winnipeg Free Press — 4 reports on this story. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.