The United States has agreed to ease sanctions on Venezuela and allow the government to pay legal fees for Nicolás Maduro’s defense attorney. The move reverses an earlier restriction that jeopardized the drug-trafficking case against the ousted Venezuelan president, according to a court filing on Friday, Reuters reported.
Maduro, 63, and his wife, Cilia Flores, 69, were captured from their home in Caracas by US special forces as part of Operation Absolute Resolve on January 3 and flown to New York to face criminal charges, including narco-terrorism. Both have pleaded not guilty and are currently being held in a Brooklyn jail awaiting trial.
Maduro’s lawyer, Barry Pollack, asked U.S. District Judge Alvin Hellerstein in Manhattan in February to dismiss the case on the grounds that U.S. sanctions prevent the Venezuelan government from paying his legal fees.
Pollack argued that this restriction violated Maduro’s constitutional right in the United States to be represented by a lawyer of his choice.
The development comes a month after a court hearing in which prosecutors reportedly said Maduro had “looted Venezuela’s wealth” and therefore should not be allowed to use the country’s funds to pay for his legal defense.
Pollack responded by saying the US government was unfairly interfering with his client’s ability to fund his defense. “He has the right to use those resources in his defense,” Pollack told the court, NBC News reported.
Neither Nicolás Maduro nor his wife, Cilia Flores, have the funds to hire lawyers themselves, while the Venezuelan government is willing to cover the cost of their legal representation, according to the defense.
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Under American law, all those accused of a crime are guaranteed constitutional rights, regardless of whether they are American citizens or not.
What did Hellerstein say?
At a March 26 court hearing, Judge Alvin Hellerstein said he did not plan to dismiss the case, but appeared to question whether the government had the right to block payments for Maduro’s legal defense.
Prosecutor Kyle Wirshba argued that the sanctions preventing the payments were based on legitimate national security and foreign policy concerns. He also told the court that Judge Hellerstein could not order the Treasury Department to change the sanctions because foreign policy decisions fall under the executive branch, not the judiciary.
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Hellerstein pointed out that the United States has already eased some sanctions on Venezuela after Maduro’s ouster. He also noted that relations between Caracas and Washington have improved since Delcy Rodríguez, Maduro’s former vice president, took over as Venezuela’s interim leader.
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Hellerstein, a judge appointed by Democratic President Bill Clinton, noted, “The defendant is here, Flores is here. They pose no further threat to national security. The right that is involved, paramount above all other rights, is the right to constitutional counsel.”
During his first term in the White House, US President Donald Trump tightened sanctions on Venezuela and accused Nicolás Maduro’s government of corruption and weakening democratic institutions. Washington also called Maduro’s re-election in 2018 fraudulent.
Maduro has denied the allegations, as well as those linking him to drug trafficking, saying they were being used as a pretext for what he said was a US attempt to gain control of Venezuela’s vast oil reserves as a major South American OPEC country.
(With agency input)
