Nicolas Maduro, Venezuela’s president, along with his wife Cilia Flores, has been taken to New York.
He is being held at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn and is set to face drugs and weapons charges in Manhattan federal court, reports CNN.
Reacting sharply, Venezuelan Vice President Delcy Rodríguez condemned what she called Maduro’s “kidnapping,” insisting that he is “the only president of Venezuela.”
Meanwhile, US President Donald Trump has declared that Washington intends to assume control over Venezuela during what he described as a “safe transition”, stating that the US will be “very strongly involved” in managing the country’s oil sector.
Meanwhile, the Venezuelan government accused the US of carrying out strikes on both civilian and military sites across several states.
Earlier on Thursday, Maduro signaled a willingness to enter talks with the US focused on cooperation against drug trafficking.
In the early hours of Saturday [Venezuelan local time] , US military jets launched strikes at multiple locations in Venezuela, triggering powerful blasts in Caracas before sunrise. Soon after, Donald Trump said that American troops had taken Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, into custody and removed them from the country by air, reports The Guardian.
Trump later posted a picture on his Truth Social platform with the caption “Nicolas Maduro on board the USS Iwo Jima”.
The assault and the first-ever detention of a head of state came after a prolonged period of escalating pressure by Washington on Caracas. Beginning in September, US naval forces positioned a massive armada near Venezuela’s shoreline, while US aircraft struck vessels accused of narcotics smuggling across both the Caribbean Sea and the Pacific Ocean. Venezuelan oil tankers were also intercepted and taken over during this period. Those operations have resulted in at least 110 deaths linked to attacks on boats, actions that human rights organisations argue may constitute “war crimes.
