Deposed Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro pleaded not guilty to charges of narco-terrorism in a New York court on Monday, two days after being snatched by US forces in a stunning raid on his home in Caracas.

Maduro, 63, told a federal judge in Manhattan that he had been “kidnapped” from Venezuela and said, “I’m innocent, I’m not guilty; I’m still the president of my country.”

Maduro’s wife Cilia Flores likewise pleaded not guilty.

The pair were snatched by US commandos in the early hours of Saturday in an assault backed by warplanes and a heavy naval deployment.

(AFP)

Collage: U.S. President Donald Trump; Colombian President Gustavo; Mexico’s President Claudia Sheinbaum

Colombian President Gustavo Petro said Monday he was ready to “take up arms” in the face of threats from US counterpart Donald Trump, who over the weekend seized the leader of neighbouring Venezuela in a military strike.

Mexico’s President Claudia Sheinbaum told Trump that Americas “do not belong” to any power, dismissing Washington’s “dominance” of the hemisphere after seizing Venezuela’s leader in a military raid.

Petro, a former guerrilla who for months had been the target of insults and threats from Trump, said on X: “I swore not to touch a weapon again… but for the homeland I will take up arms again.”

In reaction, Trump said that Petro should “watch his ass” and described Colombia’s first-ever leftist leader as “a sick man who likes making cocaine and selling it to the United States.”

Petro, whose M-19 urban guerrilla group disarmed under a 1989 peace agreement, has traded barbs with Trump ever since the Republican’s return to the White House in January.

Petro has been a vocal critic of the US military deployment in the Caribbean, which began with blowing up of alleged drug boats, before expanding to seizure of Venezuelan oil tankers, then Saturday’s raid on Caracas to seize President Nicolas Maduro.

Trump accused the Colombian leader, without providing evidence, of being involved in drug trafficking and hit him and his family with financial sanctions.

Washington also removed Colombia from a list of countries certified as allies in the US war on drugs.

In a long message on X, Petro insisted that his anti-narcotics policy is sufficiently robust, but stressed there were limits to how aggressive the military can be.

“If you bomb even one of these groups without sufficient intelligence, you will kill many children. If you bomb peasants, thousands will turn into guerrillas in the mountains. And if you detain the president, whom a good part of my people love and respect, you will unleash the popular jaguar,” he wrote.

Trump, emphasising that American dominance in the Western Hemisphere will never be questioned again,” Mexico’s President Sheinbaum hit back Monday, saying: “The Americas do not belong to any doctrine or any power. The American continent belongs to the peoples of each of the countries that comprise it.”

The Americas comprise North and South

North America includes 23 independent countries, featuring large nations like Canada, the United States, and Mexico, along with Central American nations (e.g., Costa Rica, Panama) and Caribbean island nations (e.g., Cuba, Jamaica, Bahamas).

South America has 12 independent countries: Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Paraguay, Peru, Suriname, Uruguay, and Venezuela, plus French Guiana.

US military forces early Saturday launched strikes on the Venezuelan capital Caracas and seized Maduro and his wife, flying them to New York to stand trial on drug trafficking charges.

• Deputy Nicolas Maduro Guerra, son of Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro, attends a National Council for Sovereignty and Peace event at the Hotel Eurobuilding in Caracas on October 8, 2025. Photo by FEDERICO PARRA / AFP

Nicolas Maduro’s congressman son called on Sunday for Venezuelans to take to the streets following his father’s ouster by US forces and transfer to a New York jail.

“You will see us in the streets, you will see us by people’s sides, you will see us fly the flag of dignity,” Nicolas Maduro Guerra, 35, said in a defiant audio message shared on social media.

“They want us to appear weak, but we will not show weakness,” said Maduro Guerra, who is one of six people, along with his father and stepmother Cilia Flores, accused of “narcoterrorism” by US authorities.

The seamless execution of the operation to grab Venezuela’s leader from his hiding place in the capital Caracas and fly him out of the country has led to speculation that the socialist firebrand was betrayed by someone within his inner circle.

Echoing those rumours, his son said, “History will tell who the traitors were, history will reveal it. We will see.”