{"id":496879,"date":"2026-01-06T16:35:12","date_gmt":"2026-01-06T16:35:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/496879\/"},"modified":"2026-01-06T16:35:12","modified_gmt":"2026-01-06T16:35:12","slug":"maduro-says-hes-a-prisoner-of-war-why-that-matters-nicolas-maduro-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/496879\/","title":{"rendered":"Maduro says he\u2019s a \u2018prisoner of war\u2019: Why that matters | Nicolas Maduro News"},"content":{"rendered":"

Two days after Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, 63, was abducted<\/a> by special forces of the United States during an operation in the Latin American country, he appeared in a courthouse in New York.<\/p>\n

On Monday, Maduro pleaded not guilty to federal charges, including narcoterrorism and conspiring to import cocaine. In a blue and orange prison uniform, he listened to the indictment filed by prosecutors against him and his codefendants, including his wife and son.<\/p>\n

Recommended Stories list of 4 itemsend of list<\/p>\n

The Trump administration has framed Maduro\u2019s abduction as a law enforcement operation, arguing that congressional approval was not needed.<\/p>\n

But in court, Maduro insisted that he was a \u201cprisoner of war\u201d (POW).<\/p>\n

What did Maduro say?<\/p>\n

\u201cI am innocent. I am not guilty. I am a decent man. I am still president of my country,\u201d he said through an interpreter, before he was cut off by US District Judge Alvin Hellerstein in Manhattan federal court.<\/p>\n

Maduro called himself a POW, a person captured and held by an enemy during an armed conflict.<\/p>\n

Maduro\u2019s wife, Cilia Flores, who appeared in court on Monday as a codefendant, also pleaded not guilty.<\/p>\n

Other Venezuelan leaders have echoed Maduro\u2019s position. On Saturday, his then-deputy, Delcy Rodriguez, appeared on state television alongside her brother, National Assembly chief Jorge Rodriguez, Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello and Defence Minister Vladimir Padrino Lopez, declaring that Maduro was still Venezuela\u2019s sole legitimate president.<\/p>\n

However, on Monday, the day when Rodriguez took over as Venezuela\u2019s interim president, she posted a statement on social media offering to cooperate with Trump. In the statement, she invited Trump to \u201ccollaborate\u201d and sought \u201crespectful relations\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cPresident Donald Trump, our peoples and our region deserve peace and dialogue, not war,\u201d she wrote.<\/p>\n

The Venezuelan ambassador to the United Nations, Samuel Moncada, said, \u201cWe cannot ignore a central element of this US aggression.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cVenezuela is the victim of these attacks because of its natural resources,\u201d Moncada said, according to the UN website.<\/p>\n

What is the US position?<\/p>\n

The US has described the January 3 special operation in Caracas during which Maduro was abducted as a law enforcement operation.<\/p>\n

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio told Kristen Welker of NBC\u2019s Meet the Press on Monday that the US and Venezuela were not at war.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are at war against drug trafficking organisations. That\u2019s not a war against Venezuela,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The US ambassador to the UN, Michael Waltz, said the operation was necessary to combat narcotics trafficking and transnational organised crime threatening US and regional security.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is no war against Venezuela or its people. We are not occupying a country,\u201d Waltz said, according to the UN website. \u201cThis was a law-enforcement operation in furtherance of lawful indictments that have existed for decades.\u201d<\/p>\n

However, Rubio\u2019s words contradicted Trump\u2019s statements.<\/p>\n

During a news conference on Saturday, Trump said the US would \u201crun\u201d Venezuela until a \u201csafe, proper and judicious transition\u201d could be carried out.<\/p>\n

On Sunday, Trump told reporters that the US is ready to carry out a second military strike on Venezuela if its government refuses to cooperate with his plan to \u201cresolve\u201d the situation there.<\/p>\n

\u201cMarco Rubio is not the President. Trump has declared unequivocally that the United States is engaged armed conflict with Venezuela to justify more than 100 murders of alleged drug traffickers in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific,\u201d constitutional law expert Bruce Fein told Al Jazeera.<\/p>\n

Starting in September, the US military launched a series of strikes in the Caribbean Sea and eastern Pacific on boats that it claimed were carrying narcotics. More than 100 people have been killed in at least 30 such boat bombings, but the Trump administration has yet to present any public evidence that there were drugs on board, that the vessels were travelling to the US or that the people on the boats belonged to banned organisations as the US has claimed.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf the United States were not a war, Trump would confess he is engaged in mass murder of civilians.\u201d<\/p>\n

What is the significance of Maduro\u2019s POW claim?<\/p>\n

If Maduro is indeed a POW, then protections under international law apply to him.<\/p>\n

The Third Geneva Convention of 1949 mandates humane treatment, respect and protection for POWs.<\/p>\n

According to the convention, a POW can be tried and sentenced in another country, particularly the detaining power, but only for certain crimes such as war crimes.<\/p>\n

Maduro, however, has been charged with narcotics-related offences, not with war crimes.<\/p>\n

And in general, the Third Geneva Convention requires that POWs must be returned \u201cwithout delay\u201d to their nation as soon as the conflict ends.<\/p>\n

\u201cAccording to President Trump, Maduro is a prisoner of war because Trump declared Maduro had initiated war against the United States via drug trafficking leading to overdose deaths. That would mean the Geneva Conventions would apply but which Trump will certainly disregard,\u201d Fein said.<\/p>\n

What do other experts say?<\/p>\n

Susanne Gratius, a professor of political science and international relations at the Autonomous University of Madrid, told Al Jazeera that the US attempts to portray Maduro\u2019s abduction as a law-and-order exercise did not hold up in the face of facts.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey sell the operation as a domestically motivated drugs issue, but it is clearly not. They violated national sovereignty. Even though Maduro is a dictator, there is no legal argument to hijack him and his wife through a US military operation,\u201d Gratius said, referring to Maduro\u2019s refusal to quit office despite widespread accusations that he lost controversial elections in 2024.<\/p>\n

The US attack, she said, was a violation of Article 2 of the UN Charter, which decrees that all members are sovereign equals. \u201cRegime change or access to oil do not justify unilateral military interventions.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ilias Bantekas, a professor of transnational law at Hamad Bin Khalifa University in Qatar, told Al Jazeera that the US involvement in Venezuela was \u201cless about Maduro as it is about access to Venezuela\u2019s oil deposits\u201d.<\/p>\n

Venezuela is home to the world\u2019s\u00a0largest proven oil reserves<\/a> \u2013 at an estimated 303 billion barrels as of 2023 \u2013 it earns\u00a0only a fraction<\/a>\u00a0of the revenue it once did from exporting crude.<\/p>\n

According to data from the Observatory of Economic Complexity (OEC), Venezuela exported just $4.05bn worth of crude oil in 2023. This is far below the leading exporters, including Saudi Arabia ($181bn), the US ($125bn) and Russia ($122bn). This is largely because of US sanctions on Venezuelan oil.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis [oil] is the number one target. Trump is not content with just allowing US oil firms to get concessions but to \u2018run\u2019 the country, which entails absolute and indefinite control over Venezuela\u2019s resources,\u201d Bantekas said.<\/p>\n

Experts also point to the months-long military campaign that the Trump administration waged against Venezuela before Maduro\u2019s abduction \u2014 including the bombing of boats \u2014 to underscore why it is hard to justify the US attack as a law-and-order operation.<\/p>\n

\u201cTrump\u2019s seizure of Venezuelan oil and displacement of Venezuelan sovereignty are acts of war,\u201d Fein said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Two days after Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, 63, was abducted by special forces of the United States during…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":496880,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,3],"tags":[356,4219,1230,337,1612,50,92550,67,132,68,72,195250,32322],"class_list":{"0":"post-496879","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-united-states","8":"category-us","9":"tag-courts","10":"tag-crime","11":"tag-drugs","12":"tag-explainer","13":"tag-latin-america","14":"tag-news","15":"tag-nicolas-maduro","16":"tag-united-states","17":"tag-unitedstates","18":"tag-us","19":"tag-us-canada","20":"tag-us-venezuela-tensions","21":"tag-venezuela"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115849129393073681","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/496879","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=496879"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/496879\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/496880"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=496879"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=496879"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=496879"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}