During the morning of this Saturday, April 25, the United States Government agreed to modify the sanctions against Venezuela to allow his Executive to pay the fees of the lawyers defending the former Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro and his wife, Cilia Floresin the process drug trafficking that they face in New York.
Faced with this scenario, the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFACfor its acronym in English) issued the amended licenses that authorize defense attorneys to receive payments from the Venezuelan Government under specific conditionsestablished with the help of the president in charge of Venezuela, Delcy Rodríguez.
“These amended licenses authorize defense attorneys to receive payments of the Government of Venezuela under certain conditions, including that authorized payments be made with funds available to the Government of Venezuela after March 2026,” the Office of Foreign Assets Control added in a statement.
Given the circumstances, this decision represents a new turn in the strategy of the Department of Justice of the United States and the administration of the American president donald trumpwho until now had managed to block access to all these funds, citing “reasons of national security and foreign policy”.
Maduro’s defense in New York
According to the EFE news agency, Maduro’s defense, led by lawyer Barry Pollack, had argued that the impossibility to pay the fees violated the Sixth Amendment of the Constitution, which guarantees the right of every accused to choose his legal representative and, therefore, called for the rejection of the case.
The Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution, ratified in 1791 as part of the Bill of Rightsguarantees rights fundamental to defendants in criminal trials, by ensuring a “fair, prompt and public trial before a impartial jury” and include the right to a lawyer, to hear the charges and to confront witnesses.
Given this situation, on March 26, in a second hearing in the Southern District Court of New York, Judge Alvin Hellerstein92, was skeptical of the Prosecutor’s Office’s position, pointing out that, after his capture and transfer to the United States, Nicolás Maduro no longer represented “a threat for national security.”
This is because former President Nicolás Maduro, 63, and his wife, Cilia Flores, of 69, were captured on Saturday, January 3 in Caracas by US special forces and transferred to a federal prison in Brooklynthe most populous district of New York City, where the former perpetrators have been imprisoned for almost four months.
Formal trial against Maduro
Because Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, have declared themselves “not guilty” on charges including conspiracy to narcoterrorism and import of cocaine internationally, in the United States they expect the formal trial against the couple will not begin for another year, probably in May 2027.