Name: What are the charges against Venezuela's Nicolás Maduro? | BBC Newscast
Uploaded: 2026-01-06T17:08:45.000Z
Duration: 32 min 12 s
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Hello, It's Katrina in the Washington newscast studio.

And it's Lise Doucet also in the studio with Adam.

And joining us here is Vanessa Buschluter, who is the BBC Online Latin America editor.

Also, you've brought a little prop with you, haven't you?

Although it's not a prop, it's actually a real document.

Just explain what this little blue book on the table is.

So this is a miniature Venezuelan constitution and it's got all the articles of the Constitution in it.

And members of the Maduro government like to hold it up when they invoke the Constitution, which they do quite often.

Most recently, Delsey Rodriguez, who was vice president under Nicolas Maduro, held it up and quoted articles 234 and 235 about the absence of the president to justify that she would now become the acting president in the absence of Nicolas Maduro after his seizure by the U.S.

okay, we'll dig into the details of that a bit later on.

But Lis, you're very good at summing up big international moments.

Is there a way to sum up just the drama, the significance of what's happened over the last couple of days?

it is a dangerous moment, to use the phrase used by the UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres.

It is a dangerous precedent and it has a name.

Donald Trump used it himself in his first news conference, hours after it was clear that Nicolas Maduro and his wife, Celia Flores had been extracted, kidnapped, as critics would say, from Venezuela.

In other words, a Donald Trump version of the early 19th century Monroe Doctrine, which means that the United States has freedom of action in its sphere of influence in the Western Hemisphere.

In other words, we will decide what's in our national security interests and take do whatever we do to protect it.

And that includes, of course, the resources of Venezuela, including the oil.

This is a step in a different kind of, well, making up the rules as you go along.

And also, Katrina, I've been struggling to get my false teeth around this.

Another word for that is the Trump Corollary.

Corollary, yeah, that's its full title, the Trump Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine, or as Lise was explaining and the president calls it himself, the Donroe Doctrine.

But it was the explanation, actually, that the U.S.

ambassador to the UN Mike Waltz, used this morning in that emergency meeting of the UN Security Council.

Exactly as Liz has outlined there saying this, this is where we live, this is our hemisphere.

We will essentially do what we need to do here to protect ourselves.

We should point out that we should have known it was coming because not enough people paid attention.

It's very dangerous not to pay enough attention.

In the new national security policy which was introduced at the end of last year, the Monroe Doctrine was explicitly invoked, along with the explanation that American dominance in the Western hemisphere will not be challenged.

And here we are, right from the get go in 2026, the new policy is being implemented.

And also, Vanessa, last time we spoke was an episode of newscast in November just after the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to the Venezuelan opposition leader.

And actually at the end of that conversation I asked you, oh, what are all these American warships doing off the coast of Venezuela?

And I must admit that I thought it was a pressure move.

It was trying to get Maduro to step down, but of his own accord.

And it might have been that at the time, to be fair.

But when that didn't work, clearly people in Washington put their heads together and thought, well, how can we increase the pressure?

And when that still didn't work, because I think the next step was the naval blockade and the seizure of oil tankers.

When that still didn't dislodge Maduro from power, they just went for him and Katrina.

Have you gleaned any more about this daring raid over the weekend?

For example, we woke up to the news in the UK on Monday morning that many of the people who died in Venezuela when this raid was happening were actually Cuban security officials who were protecting Maduro.

About half of those who were killed actually were Cubans.

And the President referring to that last night as well, they were guarding Maduro.

And you know, one, one of the nations that Marco Rubio hinted at, well, explicitly said really in that first press conference that the US Was looking at next was Cuba.

President Trump asked about that last night and said he didn't think US Action in Cuba was necessary.

That it would fall by itself, was what he said.

Now that that link with Venezuela is broken insofar as President Trump is concerned and the US Is concerned, obviously that is not what we are hearing from the Venezuelans themselves.

That national assembly meeting this morning with everyone being sworn into office and a very sort of defiant tone being struck there.

And in terms of what's been happening in the last few hours, we're recording this episode at about 20 past 6 on Monday evening.

Lys all day we've been glued to these amazing pictures.

And I don't want to lapse into the whole.

It's like a movie cliche, but there was something very cinematic about the pictures.

This big guy, he's tall, being led out of one helicopter into another, like the New York skyline in the distance.

Him being flown across the Hudson down to Manhattan from the detention center he was in.

It's not a cliche in the world that we live in.

Adam, President Trump uses that expression without any sense of shame.

Or he commented that when he was watching on a live feed the extradition, the rendition of Nicolas Maduro, he said it was like watching it on the television.

And all of this has been a made for television moment.

Go back to those hours where everyone was wondering, where is Nicolas Maduro?

When is he going to arrive in the United States?

And what do we see on American television?

The shots of the helicopters flying across the New York skyline, right past the iconic landmark of the Statue of Liberty, Nicholas Maduro has arrived.

And then the first walk of shame, where the great leader of great.

The powerful leader of Nicolas Maduro, President Maduro, is handcuffed in some kind of American garb, flanked.

My guards doing what's called the perpetrator's walk, humiliated.

All of these images are to send a strong message.

You just have to send a very forceful signal.

And Katrina, in terms of what was happening in court in New York this morning, I mean, those proceedings were wrapping up just as we were sitting down to start recording this episode.

And I know it was unusual because, well, unusual in the sense we're used to seeing American trials on tv, but

this part of the legal process happens away from the cameras.

We don't usually have people in the courts for this part.

I mean, we have journalists in there who relay the information to colleagues outside so we can get it as quickly as possible.

Both Nicolas Maduro and the first lady, Celia Flores, appearing there.

We're told their feet were shackled, but their hands were not shackled.

They spoke just briefly, actually, to confirm their names and that not guilty plea.

The first lady saying she was the first lady of Venezuela and she was not guilty.

Nicolas Maduro, for his part, when he gave his not guilty plea, said, I am innocent, I am not guilty, I am a decent man, I am not guilty, I am innocent of anything mentioned here.

Meaning of course, the arraignment and those charges that they're facing.

They waived their right to have the arraignment read out in detail, which would have taken a little bit longer.

But all in proceedings were wrapped up in less than an hour.

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What are the charges against Venezuela's Nicolás Maduro? | BBC Newscast

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