By Luc Cohen and Jack Queen
NEW YORK, March 26 (Reuters) – Ousted Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro returns to a U.S. court on Thursday on criminal charges including narcoterrorism, a statute that has rarely been tested at trial and has a limited record of success.
Maduro, 63, led Venezuela from 2013 through his capture in Caracas by U.S. special forces on January 3. He pleaded not guilty on January 5 to all U.S. charges against him.
The 2006 statute at issue, enacted to target drug trafficking tied to activities the United States considers terrorism, has produced just four trial convictions, a Reuters review of federal court records shows – and two were later overturned over issues stemming from witness credibility.
The mixed record highlights what could be a central challenge for prosecutors in the Maduro case: persuading jurors that evidence from cooperating insiders credibly establishes a knowing link between alleged drug crimes and terrorism.
“The lesson of these two cases is not that the narcoterrorism statute is unworkable,” said Alamdar Hamdani, a partner at law firm Bracewell and former U.S. Attorney in Houston.
“It is that the statute’s most demanding element — proving the defendant’s knowledge of the terrorism nexus — requires a quality of evidence and a standard of prosecutorial diligence that leaves no room for institutional gaps, name-spelling errors, or uncritical acceptance of what your witnesses tell you,” he said.
Prosecutors have yet to disclose who will testify against Maduro. But one former Venezuelan general indicted alongside Maduro has told Reuters he is willing to cooperate.
MADURO ACCUSED OF HELPING COLOMBIAN REBELS
Congress created the narcoterrorism statute 20 years ago to target drug traffickers who finance activities the United States considers terrorism. Since then, 83 people, including Maduro, have been charged with violating it. Thirty-one pleaded guilty to narcoterrorism or lesser charges, eight are awaiting trial, and dozens are not in U.S. custody, according to the review.
The conviction reversals do not affect Maduro’s case, and defendants in those cases faced additional charges that were not overturned. Maduro also faces three other counts, including cocaine importation conspiracy.
Maduro, a socialist, is accused of leading a conspiracy in which officials in his government helped move cocaine through Venezuela in collaboration with traffickers including the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), which the U.S. labeled a terrorist organization from 1997 to 2021. Maduro and his fellow indicted officials have always denied wrongdoing, saying the U.S. charges are part of an imperialist conspiracy to harm Venezuela.
His lawyer, Barry Pollack, did not respond to requests for comment about the narcoterrorism law’s trial record or possible witnesses against Maduro.
A spokesman for the Manhattan U.S. Attorney’s office declined to comment on the same subjects.
LAW DEFINES TERRORISM BROADLY
Narcoterrorism carries a 20-year mandatory minimum sentence, twice the minimum penalty for ordinary drug trafficking. Both can result in life imprisonment.
The narcoterrorism law defines terrorism as premeditated, politically motivated violence against non-combatants.
“If you take the legal definition of terrorism and terrorist activity, you can paint a pretty broad brush with the kind of activity we’re talking about,” said Shane Stansbury, a professor at Duke University School of Law and former federal prosecutor.
To convict Maduro, prosecutors must show that he knew the drug trafficking he allegedly facilitated resulted in a financial benefit for a group that engaged in activities the United States considered terrorism, even if he had other aims.
“It doesn’t have to be the motivation,” said Artie McConnell, a former federal prosecutor and current partner at law firm BakerHostetler.
In the first narcoterrorism trial in 2008, an Afghan man with alleged ties to the Taliban was convicted of helping a Drug Enforcement Administration informant buy opium and heroin. But in 2021, a judge threw out the narcoterrorism count after an appeals court ruled his lawyer failed to adequately challenge the only witness tying him to the Taliban.
In another case, a jury deadlocked in the 2011 trial of an accused Afghan trafficker. He was convicted at a second trial in 2012, but the narcoterrorism count was thrown out in 2015 after prosecutors acknowledged that a U.S. government agency considered the cooperating witness who linked him to the Taliban a “fabricator.”
The 2015 narcoterrorism trial conviction of a Colombian man for trying to ship cocaine for the FARC and attempting to buy weapons for the group has been upheld.
A fourth narcoterrorism trial resulted in a guilty verdict earlier this week.
CASE COULD RELY ON COOPERATING WITNESSES
Legal experts say the government’s case against Maduro could include testimony from two former Venezuelan generals indicted alongside him in 2020: Cliver Alcalá and Hugo Carvajal. Both have pleaded guilty to charges linked to their dealings with the FARC, but neither agreed to cooperate at the time of their pleas.
In a telephone interview from federal prison in Cumberland, Maryland, Alcalá said he was willing to cooperate. But he said prosecutors had previously insisted that he admit to involvement in drug trafficking, which he denies, as a condition for cooperation.
“I cannot, in order to reduce my sentence, declare myself to be a drug trafficker when I am not,” he said.
Alcalá retired from Venezuela’s military shortly after Maduro took office in 2013. He later became an outspoken critic of Maduro’s government.
Asked whether the charges against Maduro were true, Alcalá said he thought there was “some basis” and said he believed Maduro had ties to a drug trafficker jailed in Caracas. He did not offer specifics.
Alcalá, 64, is serving a nearly 22-year prison sentence after pleading guilty in 2023 to providing material support to the FARC. In court, he admitted supplying the group with weapons – which he says he did under orders from former Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez – but denied helping traffickers move cocaine.
Carvajal’s sentencing is scheduled for April 16. His lawyer declined to comment on whether he would cooperate with prosecutors.
(Reporting by Luc Cohen and Jack Queen in New York;Editing by Noeleen Walder and Howard Goller)
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