The case against Nicolas Maduro has been handled by a lawyer accustomed to difficult legal battles, and the announced defense strategy suggests a long legal battle with implications that go far beyond the individual case.
Barry Pollack is Nicolas Maduro's lawyer. PHOTO: low.com
The defense of former Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro has been taken over by Barry Pollack, a Washington lawyer who became internationally known after representing WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.
He believes that the file, which is pending before a federal court in Manhattan, could open large-scale legal disputes, both regarding the immunity that foreign leaders could benefit from, and regarding the legality of the way in which Maduro was brought to justice in the United States, notes Reuters.
At Nicolas Maduro's first court appearance on Monday, January 5, Barry Pollack announced that he expects complex legal battles. He described his client's capture as a “military kidnapping” and suggested the defense team would challenge the legality of Saturday's operation, which brought Maduro into the custody of US authorities.
According to Barry Pollack, the defense could argue that the procedure by which the former Venezuelan leader was brought to the US violated the norms of international law.
In parallel, the well-known lawyer is considering the invocation of criminal immunity, arguing that Maduro should be protected from criminal prosecution as the head of a foreign government, a strategy, however, that conflicts with the official position of the United States, which no longer recognizes Nicolas Maduro as the legitimate leader of Venezuela since 2019, after he claimed victory in an election considered fraudulent by Washington and part of the international community.
Moreover, American court practice shows that judges have repeatedly rejected requests to quash trials on the grounds that the defendants were brought to the United States illegally.
In this context, the case of Nicolas Maduro could become a landmark one, with major implications for how foreign leaders accused of serious crimes are treated and for the limits of US jurisdiction in such situations.
