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Nicolás Maduro Guerra, member of the National Assembly of Venezuela and son of the Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro Moros, defended his father and stepmother Cilia Flores this Saturday in an exclusive interview with RT, claiming that the legal proceedings they are facing in the United States are baseless and politically motivated.
"There is nothing to suggest that Nicolás Maduro and Cilia Flores committed a crime or an offense," stated Maduro Guerra, who described the process as a "political trial" and maintained that the U.S. Prosecutor's Office "has nothing."
The statements come two days after the second hearing of the case, held last Thursday before Judge Alvin Hellerstein in the Federal Court for the Southern District of New York.
In that hearing, the defense requested the dismissal of the charges, arguing that the blockade of Venezuelan public funds to pay legal fees prevents the defendants from exercising their constitutional right to choose an attorney, as protected by the Sixth Amendment.
The judge Hellerstein rejected that motion, but questioned the U.S. government's justification for blocking those payments and requested that a solution be sought for the fees issue.
"The defendant is here, Flores is here. They do not pose any threat to national security," Hellerstein stated. "The right at stake, which takes precedence over other rights, is the constitutional right to counsel," the judge added, without issuing a formal ruling on the matter.
Maduro Guerra interpreted the outcome of the hearing as favorable to the defense. "It was a quite positive step toward this trial," he stated, while asserting that the arguments presented by his father's lawyers were "world-class."
The Office of Foreign Assets Control of the Department of the Treasury (OFAC) granted a license on February 9 for Venezuela to finance defense, but revoked it hours later, citing that the blockade is related to the sanctions imposed on Venezuela and reasons of national security.
Maduro Moros and Cilia Flores have been held at the Brooklyn Metropolitan Detention Center since they were captured on January 3 in Caracas during Operation Absolute Resolution, a U.S. military raid carried out by the elite Delta Force unit.
Both pleaded not guilty at their first hearing on January 5.
The charges against Maduro include conspiracy to commit narco-terrorism, conspiracy to import cocaine, possession of machine guns and destructive devices, and a fourth charge of possession of weapons. Cilia Flores faces similar charges, except for the narco-terrorism charge.
The very Maduro Guerra has also been included in the accusation by the Southern District of New York's prosecutor's office, accused of coordinating drug shipments with dissidents from the FARC and of having used aircraft from the state oil company PDVSA for illegal cargoes.
President Donald Trump declared last Thursday that the current charges are just a fraction of Maduro's crimes and anticipated additional indictments against the Venezuelan dictator and other high-ranking officials in his government.
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