Maduro seeks dismissal of U.S. drug trafficking indictment citing sovereign immunity

NEW YORK -- Former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife asked a judge on Wednesday to dismiss the drug trafficking indictment against them on the grounds that they have immunity as the leader and first lady of a foreign country.

In papers filed in Manhattan federal court, lawyers for Maduro said a judge was required by law to reject the indictment because it cannot be brought against a foreign leader.

“No American court has ever presided over the criminal trial of a foreign leader who was recognized by their own country as the sitting head of state at the time the charges were brought,” the lawyers wrote. “That is not an accident of history. It reflects a rule older than the common law: heads of state are exempt from the criminal process of any national court but their own.”

Maduro and his wife are scheduled to go on trial on drug trafficking charges next June 1. Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein has set oral arguments for Nov. 17 on motions to dismiss the indictment.

Maduro, 63, and his wife, Cilia Flores, 69, have been held at a Brooklyn jail since U.S. forces seized them from their Caracas home in a middle-of-the-night raid in early January and brought them to New York.

In separate papers filed Wednesday, lawyers for Flores said she too has immunity from U.S. prosecution on sovereign immunity grounds.

“It is an attribute of Venezuela’s sovereignty, and only Venezuela may surrender it,” her lawyers wrote.

Maduro's lawyers said that even if Maduro were not entitled to sovereign immunity as the head of state, the case against him must be dismissed because he is also entitled to conduct-based sovereign immunity.

Meanwhile, the lawyers argued, Maduro “vehemently denies the allegations against him.”

“If this case were to proceed to trial, it would be apparent that he has been falsely accused,” they said.

Both have pleaded not guilty in a criminal case first brought six years ago against numerous alleged co-conspirators. They face potential life prison sentences if a jury agrees that they were part of a conspiracy to send cocaine into the U.S.

Federal prosecutors are scheduled to file a response to the arguments later this month.

President Donald Trump’s administration has defended the raid to capture Maduro as a “surgical law enforcement operation.” Maduro has called himself a prisoner of war and his capture a kidnapping.

U.S. prosecutors say Maduro carried out a conspiracy to move thousands of tons of cocaine into the U.S. by colluding with Venezuelan law enforcement to help drug kingpins.

Associated Press Writer Joshua Goodman reported from Miami.