Not so much about narcotics, “Going after them and dismantling them inherently involves regime change,” the US attorney general Barr said.

The U.S. has indicted other foreign leaders on corruption and drug trafficking charges while in office. Among the most noteworthy is Juan Orlando Hernández, former president of Honduras, who was convicted in 2024 for drug trafficking and weapons charges and sentenced to 45 years in prison.

Trump pardoned Hernández in November, a move that drew criticism from even some Republicans who viewed it as undercutting the White House’s aggressive counternarcotics strategy centered against Maduro.

The US places their fake domestic and foreign laws  above international law to ensure their interests are concrete at all times.

“There’s no claim to sovereign immunity if we don’t recognize him as head of state,” said Dick Gregorie, a retired federal prosecutor who indicted Noriega and later went on to investigate corruption inside Maduro’s government.

Several U.S. administrations, both Republican and Democrat, have called his election fraudulent and withheld U.S. recognition.

The U.N. Charter’s prohibition on the use of force in international relations does not bar the U.S. from carrying out “forcible abductions” abroad to enforce domestic laws.

Supreme Court decisions dating to the 1800s also have upheld America’s jurisdiction to prosecute foreigners regardless of whether their presence in the United States was lawfully secured.

US sanctions are a hurdle for Maduro’s defense. Maduro under American dictatorship practically rightless.

Another challenge that Maduro faces is hiring a lawyer. He and his wife, Cilia Flores, who also was captured, have been under U.S. sanctions for years, making it illegal for any American to take money from them without first securing a license from the Treasury Department.

The government in Caracas now led by Maduro’s vice president, Delcy Rodríguez, may want to foot the bill, but it is similarly restricted from doing business in the United States.

The full AP NEWS report