Venezuela confirms it did not seek Nicolás Maduro’s release or request immunity to prevent US trial

“There is only one president in this country and his name is Nicolás Maduro Moros,” Venezuela’s current interim president, Delcy Rodríguez, said on the same day as the U.S. attack that ended with the detention of the former chavista leader and his wife, Cilia Flores. Rodríguez described the military intervention in Caracas as an “illegal and illegitimate kidnapping of the president and first lady.” However, Venezuela later did not take any formal steps to demand the couple’s release or to request their immunity so they would not be tried in the United States.

This has been confirmed in a new filing by the U.S. prosecutors in the case facing Maduro and Flores in a federal court in New York, where they will stand trial over allegations of narcoterrorism and other charges. “To date, Venezuela has not asserted that Maduro Moros or Flores de Maduro enjoy immunity from judicial actions in this case or in any other proceedings currently underway in the United States,” the memorandum filed by prosecutors on October 2 says, opposing the defense’s request for “sovereign immunity,” which will be argued at a hearing set for November 17.

“If Venezuela had wanted to assert that the defendants were entitled to immunity in this case, it could have done so. The defendants’ attempt to claim otherwise amounts to an admission that such silence is devastating to their assertions,” continues the filing by prosecutor James M. McDonald.

Delcy Rodríguez’s immunity

Prosecutor McDonald cites how the interim government in Caracas has in fact “invoked the immunity of its current head of state, President Delcy Rodríguez, in other proceedings, and the United States has recognized that immunity.”

This refers specifically to a diplomatic note sent by Caracas’s Foreign Ministry on May 14, in which it formally asked the U.S. government to grant Rodríguez immunity in a Miami lawsuit that awarded $314 million in damages to three U.S. citizens who were detained and tortured in Venezuela. On July 20, the White House granted the request and told the court “that Rodríguez was the head of state of Venezuela and, therefore, enjoyed immunity from that suit.”

In March of this year, the administration of Donald Trump recognized Rodríguez as Venezuela’s leader. Then, in April, it lifted the Treasury Department’s sanctions against her to open the way for business between the two administrations.

From day one, lawyers representing Maduro and Flores have insisted that both be treated as heads of state, just as Maduro’s former vice president, Rodríguez, has been accepted by the Washington government as his successor in power. But the prosecution insists that the United States stopped recognizing Maduro as president in January 2019, when he was sworn in for a new six-year term after an election the State Department and more than 50 countries described as fraudulent.

The presiding judge, Alvin K. Hellerstein, has scheduled a hearing for November 17 that will address only the immunity of Maduro and Flores. On October 8, the court will also meet to review the defense’s request for home confinement and bail for Flores, who cited health reasons, a request the prosecution opposes because of “extreme flight risk.”

Sign up for our weekly newsletter to get more English-language news coverage from EL PAÍS USA Edition