Update |Maduro says 'I was captured' as he pleads not guilty to drug trafficking charges

(AP) — A defiant Nicolás Maduro declared himself the “president of my country” as he protested his capture and pleaded not guilty on Monday to the drug trafficking charges in the United States. The Trump administration used the charges to justify removing him as president of Venezuela.

“I was captured,” Maduro said in Spanish as translated by a courtroom reporter before being cut off by the judge. Asked later for his plea to the charges, he stated: "“I’m innocent. I am not guilty. I am a decent man, the president of my country.”

The courtroom appearance, Maduro's first since he and his wife were seized from their home in a stunning middle-of-the-night military operation, kick-starts the US government’s most consequential prosecution in decades of a foreign head of state.

The criminal case in Manhattan is unfolding against the diplomatic backdrop of an audacious US-engineered regime change that President Donald Trump has said will enable his administration to “run” the South American country.

Maduro, wearing a blue jail uniform, was led into court along with his co-defendant wife just before noon for the brief, but required, legal proceeding. Both put on headsets to hear the English-language proceeding as it is translated into Spanish.

The couple were transported to the Manhattan courthouse under armed guard early Monday from the Brooklyn jail where they've been detained since arriving in the US on Saturday.

Venezuela’s new interim president, Delcy Rodríguez, has demanded that the US return Maduro, who long denied any involvement in drug trafficking — although late Sunday she also struck a more conciliatory tone in a social media post, inviting collaboration with Trump and “respectful relations” with the US,

Before his capture, Maduro and his allies claimed US hostility was motivated by lust for Venezuela’s rich oil and mineral resources.

The US seized Maduro and his wife in a military operation early Saturday, capturing them in their home on a military base. Trump said the US would “run” Venezuela temporarily, but Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Sunday that it would not govern the country day-to-day other than enforcing an existing " oil quarantine."

Trump suggested Sunday that he wants to extend American power further in the Western Hemisphere.

Speaking aboard Air Force One, he called Colombia's president, Gustavo Petro, "a sick man who likes making cocaine and selling it to the United States. And he’s not going to be doing it very long.”

He called on Venezuela's Rodriguez to provide “total access” to her country, or else face consequences.

Trump has suggested that removing Maduro would enable more oil to flow out of Venezuela, but oil prices rose a bit more than 1% in Monday morning trading to roughly $58 a barrel. There are uncertainties about how fast oil production can be ramped up in Venezuela after years of neglect and needed investments, as well as questions about governance and oversight of the sector.

A 25-page indictment made public Saturday accuses Maduro and others of working with drug cartels to facilitate the shipment of thousands of tons of cocaine into the U.S. They could face life in prison if convicted.

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