Ousted Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores are due in Manhattan federal court on Wednesday for a procedural hearing at which US District Judge Alvin Hellerstein is expected to set a timetable for their narco-terrorism and drug trafficking case. In a joint filing submitted on Tuesday night, federal prosecutors and Maduro’s defence lawyers proposed that the trial begin in June 2027, with the first round of defence motions to dismiss the indictment due by 2 September 2026. That motion is widely expected to assert that Maduro enjoys immunity from prosecution as a former head of a sovereign state.

US prosecutors allege that Maduro and Flores conspired with Colombian drug cartels and Venezuelan security forces to ship thousands of tonnes of cocaine into the United States, charges that carry a potential life sentence. Maduro has pleaded not guilty and, during his January arraignment, described himself as a “prisoner of war”, while his lead attorney, Barry Pollack, has indicated the defence will challenge the legality of the January 2026 US military operation that seized the couple from their Caracas residence. The Trump administration has defended the raid as a “surgical law enforcement operation” tied to a 2020 indictment, and in April the Treasury Department eased sanctions to permit Venezuela’s government to pay the couple’s legal fees, resolving an earlier defence motion that had argued the funding ban violated the constitutional right to counsel of choice.

The proposed schedule would see oral argument on the immunity motion in November 2026, a second round of pre-trial motions in January 2027, and the turnover of most classified evidence by the prosecution later this year. The timeline reflects the complexity of a case that intersects with unresolved questions of international law, including whether a sitting head of state can be abducted by a foreign power to stand trial. Viewed from Caracas, the legal proceedings unfold against a transformed political landscape: Maduro’s former vice-president, Delcy Rodríguez, now leads an interim government that has rapidly normalised relations with Washington, while US-controlled accounts manage Venezuela’s oil export revenues. The Trump administration has also provided humanitarian aid following devastating earthquakes in June that killed more than 5,000 people.

Maduro and Flores have been held without bail in a federal detention centre in Brooklyn since their capture on 3 January 2026. The hearing on Wednesday, originally scheduled for late June but postponed for security reasons, is expected to lock in the pre-trial calendar, though both sides have reserved the right to seek adjustments. Judge Hellerstein, who is 92, will ultimately set the schedule, and the case is likely to remain in the pre-trial phase for at least another year.