The United States agreed to modify its sanctions against Venezuela to allow the government of the South American country to pay the defense attorney of Nicolás Maduro, stepping back from a restriction that threatened to jeopardize the drug trafficking case against the former Venezuelan president, according to a court document released on Friday (24).
Detained since January 3
Maduro, 63, and his wife, Cilia Flores, 69, were captured at their home in Caracas by American special forces on January 3 and taken to New York to answer for criminal charges, including conspiracy to narco-terrorism. They pleaded not guilty and are detained in Brooklyn awaiting trial.
In February, Maduro’s lawyer, Barry Pollack, asked the American district judge Alvin Hellerstein, of Manhattan, to dismiss the case, arguing that the U.S. sanctions were preventing the Venezuelan government from paying his fees.
Pollack stated that this prohibition amounted to a violation of Maduro’s right to the legal representation of his choosing, guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution.
Neither Maduro nor Flores can afford to hire lawyers on their own, and the Venezuelan government is willing to cover the fees, their lawyers said.
All defendants in criminal proceedings in the U.S. have constitutional rights, regardless of whether they are or are not U.S. citizens
Hellerstein stated in a court hearing on March 26 that he did not intend to dismiss the case, but expressed skepticism about the government’s justification for blocking the payments.
National Security
The prosecutor Kyle Wirshba told the court that the U.S. sanctions blocking the payments were based on legitimate national security and foreign policy interests. Wirshba also said that Hellerstein could not order the Treasury Department to modify the sanctions, as foreign policy is the responsibility of the Executive Branch, and not the Judiciary.
Hellerstein noted that the U.S. had eased sanctions against Venezuela since Maduro’s deposition. Relations between Caracas and Washington had improved since Delcy Rodríguez, Maduro’s former vice president, took over interim leadership of Venezuela.
‘The defendant is here, Flores is here. They no longer pose any threat to national security,’ said Hellerstein, a judge appointed by Democratic President Bill Clinton. ‘The right that is at issue, primordial in relation to other rights, is the right to constitutional legal assistance.’
Sanctions against Venezuela
During his first term in the White House, the U.S. president, Donald Trump, intensified sanctions against Venezuela on the grounds that Maduro’s government was corrupt and undermined democratic institutions. Washington deemed Maduro’s reelection in 2018 fraudulent.
Maduro rejected these accusations, along with the allegations of his involvement in drug trafficking, as pretexts for what he called Washington’s desire to seize control of the vast oil reserves of the South American nation, a member of OPEC.
