LEILA FADEL, HOST:
We've heard some of the U.S. case against ousted Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro. Now he has taken the first step in his defense. Maduro and his wife pleaded not guilty to federal criminal charges on Monday. U.S. military special forces seized them both from inside Venezuela last week. In a few minutes, we'll hear from a former prosecutor at the International Criminal Court in The Hague about the arguments Maduro might make. We start with Maduro's first appearance in a New York court.
STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
NPR's Jasmine Garsd was in the courtroom and joins us now. Jasmine, good morning.
JASMINE GARSD, BYLINE: Good morning.
INSKEEP: What was it like?
GARSD: It was really unusual from the moment Maduro appeared in court. Before he sat down, he made eye contact with reporters, and he wished us a Happy New Year - in English, in fact. I don't think anyone saw that coming. His wife walked in behind him. She seemed to have a swollen eye, and her forehead was bandaged. Later, her lawyer said she'd been hurt in the military operation during their capture. They requested X-rays for her ribs. They said they were either bruised or broken.
Now, the proceedings. The whole thing lasted about 30 minutes. And early on, there was a heckler in the courtroom, which led to a reminder for us to keep quiet. But as Maduro was escorted back out, this man got up and yelled at him, saying he would pay for what he's done to Venezuelans. Maduro responded that he's a man of God and added that he's a prisoner of war kidnapped by the American military.
INSKEEP: OK, so a heckler who is an anti-Maduro heckler. I was just seeing video images of protests outside the courthouse as well.
GARSD: Yeah. There was quite a lot. You know, there were these really heated exchanges happening outside. I think it really speaks to the complicated feeling around all this. There were two groups of protesters. There were those who are against American intervention in Venezuela, and there were Venezuelans celebrating Maduro's capture. I spoke to a young man named Izzy McCabe.
IZZY MCCABE: This is a ploy to capture oil and foreign resource of a country. And this is to serve the same companies that come back and that bribe our politicians, that, you know, make us poor, that steal our resources here, that are polluting our environment here.
GARSD: And, you know, Steve, Trump has said he wants to take control of Venezuela's oil resources and have American companies rebuild that infrastructure. So I asked one of the Venezuelan protesters who was there celebrating Maduro's detention what she makes of those accusations that this is just about the U.S. exploiting Venezuela's oil reserves. Here's a woman named Maria Seu.
MARIA SEU: (Speaking Spanish).
GARSD: What she's saying is, "you think Russia and China are in Venezuela for fun? How many years have they been stealing Venezuelan oil and gold? How many years have they been taking advantage of us? How many years has Cuba been living off of us?"
INSKEEP: Interesting questions. But what did you learn in that half hour about the case against Maduro and also his defense?
GARSD: Maduro's attorney is a well-known lawyer, Barry Pollack, who defended Julian Assange against the U.S. government as well. And he reminded the judge yesterday that his client is the head of a sovereign state and that there's going to be a lot of questions about the legality of how he was taken. And meanwhile, the Trump administration's indictment is 25 pages long. So what I can say is that this case is likely going to go on for a while. The next hearing is on March 17. Meanwhile, the Maduros are going to be held in jail right here in New York City.
INSKEEP: NPR's Jasmine Garsd, thanks so much.
GARSD: Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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