Venezuela’s Maduro asserts immunity in US court, urges dismissal of charges

Ousted Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has urged a United States judge to dismiss the criminal drug trafficking charges against him, arguing he should be immune from prosecution as the head of a sovereign country.

Maduro’s lawyer, Barry Pollack, made the appeal in a Manhattan district court on Wednesday.

His legal team has petitioned District Judge Alvin Hellerstein to dismiss the case, which will test the willingness of US courts to apply international law to criminal cases.

Maduro was abducted and imprisoned on January 3, after US President Donald Trump authorised a military raid in Caracas. The former Venezuelan leader , who has been held in a Brooklyn federal jail, has pleaded not guilty and is scheduled to go on trial on June 1, 2027, if his effort to dismiss the case is unsuccessful.

The principle that sitting heads of state are immune from prosecution abroad is a longstanding tenet of international law, seen as fundamental to diplomacy.

Judge Hellerstein had given Pollack a Wednesday deadline to file his motion to dismiss the case.

Pollack has argued that Hellerstein lacks jurisdiction, both because sovereign heads of state enjoy complete immunity and because the acts that Maduro is accused of would have been part of his official duties.

“This unprecedented prosecution violates the absolute immunity from criminal jurisdiction to which heads of state and foreign officials acting in their official capacities have been entitled for hundreds of years,” Pollack wrote.