On Monday morning, a handcuffed, jumpsuit-clad Nicholas Maduro stepped off a military helicopter in New York City, flanked by armed federal agents.
The Venezuelan president had spent the night in a notorious federal jail in Brooklyn, before authorities transported him to a Manhattan courthouse to face criminal charges.
Attorney General Pam Bondi has said Maduro was brought to the US to face justice. But international law experts question the legality of the Trump administration's actions, and argue the US may have violated international statutes governing the use of force. Domestically, however, the US's actions fall into a legal grey area that may still result in Maduro standing trial, regardless of the circumstances that brought him there.
The US maintains its actions were legally justified. The Trump administration has accused Maduro of narco-terrorism and enabling the transport of thousands of tonnes of cocaine to the US.
All personnel involved acted professionally, decisively, and in strict accordance with US law and established protocols, Bondi said in a statement.
Maduro has long denied US allegations that he oversees an illegal drug operation, and in court in New York on Monday he entered a plea of not guilty.
Although the charges are focused on drugs, the US prosecution of Maduro comes after years of criticism of his leadership of Venezuela from the wider international community.
In 2020, UN investigators said Maduro's government had committed egregious violations amounting to crimes against humanity - and that the president and other top officials were implicated. The US and some of its allies have also accused Maduro of rigging elections, and did not recognize him as the legitimate president.
Maduro's alleged links to drugs cartels are the focus of this legal case, yet the US methods in putting him before a US judge to answer these charges are also under scrutiny.
Conducting a military operation in Venezuela and whisking Maduro out of the country under the cover of darkness was completely illegal under international law, said Luke Moffett, a professor at the Queen's University Belfast School of Law.
International law would consider the drug-trafficking offences the US alleges against Maduro to be a law enforcement matter, experts say, not a violent attack that might justify one country to take military action against another.
Even if an individual faces indictment in America, The US has no right to go around the world enforcing the arrest warrant in the territory of other sovereign states, said Milena Sterio, an expert on international criminal law at Cleveland State University College of Law.
Maduro's lawyers in court in Manhattan on Monday said they would challenge the legality of the US operation which took him from Caracas to New York.
There's also a long-running legal debate about whether presidents must follow the UN Charter. The US Constitution considers treaties the country enters to be the supreme law of the land.
Analysis of Historical Context
In 1989, the George HW Bush administration removed Panama's military leader Manuel Noriega and brought him to the US to face drug trafficking charges. An internal Justice Department memo from the time argued that the president had the legal authority to order the FBI to arrest individuals who violated US law, even if those actions contravene customary international law - including the UN Charter.
The author of that memo, William Barr, became the US attorney general during Trump's first term and brought the initial 2020 indictment against Maduro. However, the memo's reasoning later came under criticism from legal scholars. US courts have not explicitly weighed in on the matter.
Maduro could argue that the US violated international laws when it forcibly brought him to New York. However, extensive legal precedent suggests a trial against Maduro would go forward.
