Gunfire and anti-aircraft blasts heard near Venezuela’s presidential palace as chaos
Heavy gunfire has been reported near the presidential palace in Caracas, Venezuela, hours after ousted President Nicolás Maduro faced a New York courtroom.
Extraordinary vision emerged on social media on Monday night appearing to capture the soudn of a hail of bullets descending on Venezuela’s capital.
Locals said ‘anti-aircraft’ blasts were heard from the general vicinity of the presidential palace after days of chaos in the streets since Maduro and his wife were captured from their home and whisked to America to face drug trafficking charges.
It comes after Maduro declared himself ‘the president of my country’ as he protested his capture and pleaded not guilty Monday to federal charges that the Trump administration used to justify removing him from power in Venezuela.
‘I was captured,’ Maduro said in Spanish as translated by a courtroom interpreter before being cut off by the judge.
Asked later for his plea to the charges, he stated: ‘I am innocent. I am not guilty. I am a decent man, the constitutional president of my country.’
Maduro’s court appearance in Manhattan, his first since he and his wife, Cilia Flores, were seized from their Caracas home Saturday in a stunning middle-of-the-night military operation, kicked off the U.S. government’s most consequential prosecution in decades of a foreign head of state. She also pleaded not guilty.
Extraordinary vision emerged on social media on Monday night appearing to show a hail of bullets descending on Venezuela’s capital
Cilia Flores arrived at the Wall Street Heliport in New York Monday with visible bruising to her forehead and cheek. She and her husband both pled not guilty to narco-terrorism charges
The court set a next date of March 17, and no application for bail was made.
Explosions tore across Caracas during the daring raid on early Saturday morning, as Venezuelan Attorney General Tarek Saab claimed that ‘innocents’ had been ‘mortally wounded’ by the US operation.
With details still emerging on Monday, Havana said 32 Cubans were killed in the attack, while Donald Trump suggested Cuba itself was close to collapse following Nicolás Maduro’s capture.
‘I don’t think we need any action. It looks like it’s going down,’ Trump said.
The preliminary hearing for Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro devolved into chaos as the deposed leader’s fury boiled over, sparking a shouting match with a man who claimed he had been jailed by Maduro’s regime and warned he would ‘pay’
The White House signaled on Sunday that it was not seeking full regime change, but rather Maduro’s removal and the installation of a compliant new government – even one staffed by many of his former allies.
Anointed by mentor Hugo Chávez before his death in 2013, Maduro maintained an iron grip on power until his dramatic capture.
Maduro’s vice president and ally Delcy Rodríguez has stepped in as interim President.