The US has agreed to modify its sanctions on Venezuela to allow the South American country’s government to pay Nicolas Maduro’s defence lawyer, backing off a restriction that had threatened to derail the drug trafficking case against the ousted Venezuelan president, a court filing showed on April 24.
Maduro, 63, and his wife Cilia Flores, 69, were captured from their home in Caracas by US special forces on Jan 3 and brought to New York to face criminal charges including narcoterrorism conspiracy. They have pleaded not guilty and are jailed in Brooklyn pending trial.
Maduro’s lawyer Barry Pollack in February asked Manhattan-based US District Judge Alvin Hellerstein to dismiss the case because US sanctions were preventing the Venezuelan government from paying his legal fees.
Mr Pollack said that prohibition amounted to a violation of Maduro’s rights under the US Constitution to the counsel of his choice.
Neither Maduro nor Flores can afford lawyers on their own, and the Venezuelan government is prepared to pay their fees, their lawyers have said.
All criminal defendants in the US have constitutional rights regardless of whether they are US citizens.
Judge Hellerstein said in a March 26 court hearing that he did not intend to dismiss the case, but appeared sceptical that the government was justified in blocking the payments.
Prosecutor Kyle Wirshba said in court that the US sanctions blocking the payments were based on legitimate national security and foreign policy interests. Mr Wirshba also said that Judge Hellerstein could not order the US Treasury Department to modify its sanctions because the executive branch, not the judiciary, is in charge of foreign policy.
Judge Hellerstein noted that the US had relaxed sanctions on Venezuela since Maduro’s ouster. Relations between Caracas and Washington have improved since Ms Delcy Rodriguez, Maduro’s former vice-president, began leading Venezuela on an interim basis.
“The defendant is here, Flores is here. They present no further national security threat,” said Judge Hellerstein, a judicial appointee of Democratic President Bill Clinton. “The right that’s implicated, paramount over other rights, is the right to constitutional counsel.”
During his first term in the White House, US President Donald Trump ramped up sanctions on Venezuela over allegations that Maduro’s government was corrupt and undermining democratic institutions. Washington called Maduro’s 2018 re-election fraudulent.
Maduro dismissed those accusations, along with allegations of his participation in drug trafficking, as pretextual justifications for what he called a US desire to seize control of the South American OPEC nation’s vast oil reserves. REUTERS