Delcy Rodríguez was sworn in as Venezuela’s interim president in a parliamentary session that opened with demands for the release of ousted leader Nicolás Maduro from U.S. custody.
Rodríguez, 56, who has served as vice president since 2018, called Maduro’s capture a “kidnapping” and said she was pained by the detention of him and his wife, Cilia Flores. The couple were seized by U.S. forces during an overnight raid on Saturday.
In a dramatic scene in a New York courtroom just two hours earlier, Maduro had pleaded not guilty to charges of drug trafficking and terrorism and insisted he remained Venezuela’s legitimate president.
The operation also drew sharp international criticism at the United Nations, where the U.S. ambassador defended the action by arguing that the world’s largest oil reserves should not be left under the control of an “illegitimate leader” and a “fugitive from justice.”
By James Kisoo
