President Maduro’s lawyer said his client’s right to legal counsel of choice has been denied by US government actions.
Venezuela’s abducted President Nicolas Maduro has asked a United States judge to throw out drug trafficking charges brought against him by the Trump administration, alleging that Washington was sabotaging his constitutional right to defend himself.
Maduro’s legal team argued on Thursday that the case should be thrown out because the US government has blocked the Venezuelan government from covering the abducted president’s legal fees and those of his wife.
By blocking funds, the US administration was “interfering with Mr. Maduro’s ability to retain counsel and, therefore, his right under the Sixth Amendment to counsel of his choice”, Maduro’s defence lawyer Barry Pollack said in a filing to a Manhattan federal judge.
Interference in Maduro’s right to counsel under the Sixth Amendment to the US Constitution requires dismissal of the charges, Pollock said.
Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, have been jailed in New York without bail since they were seized from their Venezuelan home on January 3 in a bloody nighttime raid by US military forces.
US prosecutors allege that Maduro abused his power in office to help drug traffickers and that his wife was a co-conspirator in those crimes.
They have both maintained their innocence.
In his filing to the court, Pollack said that the US Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control, which administers sanctions against Venezuela, had granted permission on January 9 for Maduro’s legal fees to be paid by the Venezuelan government.
Less than three hours later, though, the Trump administration revoked the authorisation “without explanation”, though it left in place a licence granting permission for Maduro’s wife’s lawyers to be paid by authorities in Caracas, Pollack said.
A spokesman for the Manhattan US Attorney’s office, which brought the charges, did not immediately respond to a request for comment, according to the Reuters news agency.
According to The Associated Press news agency, if the US government were to allow Venezuela to pay for the cost of Maduro’s legal defence, it could complicate prosecutors’ efforts in court to counter the deposed leader’s argument that his capture was illegal and that, as a foreign head of state, he is immune from prosecution under US and international law.
*Aljazeera*
