Maduro received a consular visit while awaiting his next hearing on March 26th

New York.- The President of Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro, detained in the United States, and his wife, Cilia Flores, received a consular visit from a Venezuelan official on January 30 while they remain in a New York jail awaiting their next court hearing, scheduled for March 26.

According to a notification from the Prosecutor’s Office and the defense to the judge, which is available this Wednesday in the digital file of the case, Maduro and Flores received that day “an official who represented the Republic of Venezuela to help facilitate the accused any service they needed.” The document, delivered yesterday, highlights that Judge Alvin Hellerstein ordered the Prosecutor’s Office, in the first appearance of the accused on January 5th, to provide them with access to consular services and inform the court when they did so.

Declaration of innocence by Maduro

The next hearing of Maduro and Flores will be on March 26 at 11 a.m., since at the beginning of this month the Prosecutor’s Office, with the consent of the defense, requested to postpone the initial date of March 17 and Judge Hellerstein acceded to the request that same day, as stated in the file.

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The Southern District of New York Attorney’s Office argued for the postponement of the hearing, stating that it needed more time to gather evidence, allow the defense to review it, and for the defense to decide which motions to file before the trial, to which the judge agreed “in the interest of justice,” the document indicates. Maduro declared himself as “an innocent man” of the drug trafficking charges that the Donald Trump Administration used to justify his capture and transfer to the U.S. on January 3, and said he was a “prisoner of war”.