The scene was set for a dramatic confrontation as the former Venezuelan leader, Nicolás Maduro, encountered what Attorney General Pam Bondi referred to as the “full wrath” of the American legal system.

However, it wasn’t the courtroom’s authority that seemed to unsettle Maduro; during his preliminary hearing in New York, it was his own temper that flared.

The ousted Venezuelan president engaged in a heated exchange with Pedro Rojas, a man from the public gallery who alleged he had been imprisoned under Maduro’s rule.

In a fervent response to Rojas’s assertion that Maduro would face justice for his actions, Maduro retorted by labeling Rojas a “prisoner of war.”

This unexpected confrontation unfolded at the conclusion of a 30-minute session in the Manhattan federal court. During the proceeding, the judge intervened to silence Maduro as he launched into a tirade, claiming he had been “kidnapped” by U.S. forces.

For Maduro, who had been a sitting president just days prior, this was a stark and humbling moment.

Maduro, 63, walked into courtroom 26A wearing a blue T-shirt with an orange T-shirt underneath and tan issue prison pants.

His hands were cuffed behind him, and they were released as he walked into the court through a side door: his legs were shackled.

His wife Cilia Flores, 69, was wearing similar clothes and was also shackled, sitting on the same bench with a pained expression on her face.

Behind both in the packed courtroom sat two US Marshals.

As he walked in through a side door Maduro nodded to multiple people in the audience and said in English: ‘Happy New Year.’

One man in the public gallery gave the deposed president a thumbs up back.

Maduro and Flores put on headphones and listened to the proceedings through a translator.

As the hearing continued, Maduro took notes on a yellow pad in front of him and appeared impassive.

He stood and put his fingers on the table next to him as the Judge Alvin Hellerstein read out a summary of the indictment against him, detailing four counts of drug trafficking and other charges.

Asked to identify himself, Maduro stood and told the court through the translator: ‘I am Nicolás Maduro Moros. I am President of the Republic of Venezuela. I am here, kidnapped, since Saturday January the 3rd.

‘I was captured in my house in Caracas, Venezuela.’

Judge Hellerstein, a 92-year-old Clinton appointee, cut him off and said: ‘There is a time and place to go into all of that. I just need to know if you are Nicolás Maduro Moros.’

Maduro, briefly chastened, said: ‘I am Nicolás Maduro Moros.’

Maduro and his wife both pleaded not guilty.

During his plea Maduro said: ‘I am innocent. I am not guilty. I am a decent man. I am still President of Venezuela.’

Flores identified herself as the ‘First Lady of Venezuela’ and said she was ‘completely innocent’.

The court set a next date of March 17, and no application for bail was made.

As she sat in court, Flores had visible bruises to her face: one the size of a golf ball on her forehead, red cheeks and what appeared to be a welt over her right eye.

During the hearing her lawyer Mark Donnelly asked that she be given an X-ray because she had sustained ‘significant injuries’ during her apprehension.

There was a ‘fracture or severe injuries to her ribs’, Donnelly said.

Maduro’s lawyer, prominent criminal defense lawyer Barry Pollack, who previously represented Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, said that his client was ‘head of a sovereign state’ and had ‘all the privileges and immunity that goes with that’.

In a sign of the potential legal challenges ahead, Pollack said that there were ‘issues of legality with his military abduction’.

Before the hearing ended, Maduro had one final request for the judge: that he be allowed to keep his notes from the hearing. The judge agreed.

Maduro tried to take his pen with him but the US Marshals took it away: he was allowed to keep his notepad.

As he walked out, Maduro waved at the crowd again but became belligerent when Rojas shouted at him that he was an ‘illegitimate’ President and that he would ‘pay’.

Raising his finger into the air, the court got a glimpse of Maduro’s temper when he shouted back, ‘I’m a man of God’ and claimed he was a ‘kidnapped President’ and a ‘prisoner of war’.

Speaking afterwards, Rojas, 33, said that he had been imprisoned by Maduro for a number of months in 2019.

He now works for First Justice, a Venezuelan political party.

Maduro’s day had begun early at the Metropolitan Detention Center, the grim federal prison in Brooklyn where he is being detained.

He and his wife were driven to a nearby soccer field where they were seen boarding a helicopter wearing tan-issue pants and a top with their hands zip tied in front of them.

Prison officials had given Maduro orange slip-on shoes to wear.

The couple were taken to the Downtown Manhattan Heliport in what amounted to an extraordinary and very public perp walk: seven armed law enforcement officers with rifles and tactical gear, along with three DEA agents, accompanied them.

One held Maduro’s left arm and another held his right arm.

As he exited the helicopter Maduro ducked to avoid the downdraft then briefly looked up at the sky.

Despite not having shackles on his legs, he appeared to have some difficulty walking.

Maduro and his wife were taken in an armored SWAT vehicle to the Manhattan Federal Court where they arrived shortly after 7am.

Amid intense security, dozens of NYPD officers and DEA agents stood guard outside the court with barricades blocking off the sidewalks.

Reporters and line sitters had begun lining up at noon on Sunday for a seat in court – 24 hours before the hearing.

After he arrived, groups of pro and anti-Maduro protesters had to be separated by police who put up barricades to keep them 8ft apart.

The hundreds of people screamed at each other from either side of the barrier with an NYPD officer between them.

The pro-Maduro group chanted: ‘Out of Gaza, out of Iraq! Out of Venezuela, Trump go back!’

The group, which included members of the Marxist group the Workers World Party, held up signs saying: ‘Free Nicolas Maduro and Cilia Flores.’

Another sign read: ‘No to criminal Trump invasion.’

But most of those who went into the court were delighted to see him finally being held to account.

David Cardenas, a human rights lawyer with the Venezuelan opposition group OLV, said: ‘We have been waiting for this moment for 25 years. We’re so happy to see this.

‘Maduro is a criminal and a terrorist. He was recently laughing at my group saying don’t cry when they come for you. I don’t know who is crying now, me or him?’

Explosions tore across Caracas during the daring raid on early Saturday morning, as Venezuelan Attorney General Tarek Saab claimed that ‘innocents’ had been ‘mortally wounded’ by the US operation.

With details still emerging on Monday, Havana said 32 Cubans were killed in the attack, while Donald Trump suggested Cuba itself was close to collapse following Nicolás Maduro’s capture. 

‘I don’t think we need any action. It looks like it’s going down,’ Trump said.

Maduro, 63, was seized in the early hours of Saturday in Caracas alongside his wife, Cilia Flores, during a high-risk operation carried out by the US Army’s elite Delta Force. 

The pair were captured at their heavily fortified compound after US intelligence tracked their movements.

Maduro reportedly raced to shut a six-inch-thick steel door to a safe room seconds before US special forces stormed the residence. 

According to CNN, the couple were taken from their bedroom as they slept, with no US casualties reported.

They were later flown out of Caracas by helicopter after Trump personally authorized the mission, which was guided by CIA surveillance.

The White House signaled on Sunday that it was not seeking full regime change, but rather Maduro’s removal and the installation of a compliant new government – even one staffed by many of his former allies.

Anointed by mentor Hugo Chávez before his death in 2013, Maduro maintained an iron grip on power until his dramatic capture by US forces on Saturday.

He ruled alongside his wife, Cilia Flores, and three other dominant figures: Delcy Rodríguez, now Venezuela’s interim leader; her brother Jorge Rodríguez; and their longtime rival, hardline Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello.

‘It’s like a club of five,’ a diplomatic source in Caracas told AFP, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Washington’s stance has left Venezuela’s opposition – which the Trump administration says was cheated out of victory by Maduro – sidelined and furious.

Meanwhile, countries with deep ties to Maduro’s government, including China, Russia and Iran, swiftly condemned the operation, while some US allies, among them the European Union, voiced alarm.