“What happened to Maduro?”
“He got off the flight.”
“Was the flight on the ground at the time?”
“No, I don’t believe it was.”
I’ve seen photos of Maduro since his arrest with a blindfold over his eyes. Is that acceptable under the Geneva Convention? Not like they care….
Yes. In that instance, blindfolding is allowed under Geneva.
You can blindfold for legit security purposes. Usually that’s after capture on your way to detention.
You can’t blindfold to treat someone inhumanely. Like to humiliate or as a form of torture.
The only argument I can see is whether there is any legitimate security concerns or not. Even if there was not, I doubt that type of blindfolding would be considered inhumane treatment.
Late: the same analysis would be applied to handcuffs.
Sorry, I was unclear. I meant the taking of his photograph.
Got it. That’s a better question actually. Assuming Gov’t took it/released it, then maybe. We’d really need to get into the actual pictures at this point.
It’s always about humane treatment. Basically, the rule is you can document a detainee, but you cannot display them. Specifically, Article 23 says POWs must be protected at all times, particularly against acts of violence or intimidation and against insults and public curiosity. In this case it would be public curiosity. Can’t treat them like a zoo animal.
Here, during the transport, I’d say there is an interest in knowing that he is alive. Proof of life so to speak. That’s allowed. If they keep showing photos that don’t need to be seen of him locked up in unusual (but w/o photo legal ways - say showering, etc.), then I would say not allowed. Not if the only purpose is to humiliate.
I’m now curious how this “public curiosity” protection applies in the age of Twitter with this particular administration who definitely likes to show off their prize catches.
Although there is little doubt that there was cocaine coming out of Venezuela, is there any evidence that Maduro was personally involved? If not, he might well be acquitted legitimately. Also, there is the question of whether all the evidence was legitimately acquired.
Pipsqueak Pillow Guy heard from (fasten your seatbelts, this one is really weird):
Labeled as Gift Link. YMMV.
In the days after American commandos raided Nicolás Maduro’s compound and whisked him out of Venezuela, Mike Lindell wasn’t ruminating about the dramatic military operation or oil prices—he was reviving a long-dead conspiracy theory.
Lindell, better known as the “MyPillow guy,” was celebrating because, in his telling, a possible witness to the theory that Venezuela conspired with election-equipment companies to rig the 2020 presidential election against Donald Trump was now in U.S. custody. “I’m hoping now that Maduro will actually come clean and tell us everything about the machines and how they steal the elections,” Lindell, who has long espoused election falsehoods, told me the day after the Venezuelan dictator’s arraignment.
The supposition boils down to this: Venezuela plotted with election-equipment and -technology companies to engineer Trump’s defeat in 2020. There is no credible evidence to support this. But with Maduro in U.S. custody months before the midterms and the Trump administration investigating the 2020 election, an idea that had been disproved by facts and debunked in lawsuits has been revived, with a newsy twist: Now Maduro will prove from a New York jail that Trump defeated Joe Biden.
Since Maduro’s capture, Trump has shared a raft of discredited election-fraud claims on his Truth Social site, including one tied to a company central to the Venezuela conspiracy. A top Justice Department official helped harden the narrative: Ed Martin, the United States pardon attorney (who also directs the Justice Department’s Weaponization Working Group, which pursues retribution against Trump’s perceived political enemies), promoted the idea that Maduro could offer crucial information to substantiate the stolen-election theory once and for all. Martin reposted on X a claim that Maduro could try “to plead to lesser charges by proffering evidence that the 2020 election was stolen,” adding “!”
The right-wing podcaster Benny Johnson, an extremely online Trump-administration ally, claimed that Maduro “is in possession” of evidence against election-equipment companies. “Maduro might be Trump’s final revenge for the election theft of 2020,” Johnson told his audience. “If he begins to sing like a canary—which he will; they always do—then who will he give up?” Johnson added: “This is why they took him alive.”
…
My bold.
So…is the whole “We’re gonna get Venezuelan oil” thing just an excuse to bring Maduro to the USA? Stranger things have happened are happening.
It’s just batshit-crazy levels of MAGA delusion. A dysfunctional country with a shattered economy somehow masterminded and pulled off a massive conspiracy? Suuuuuure.
Hernandez was a president prosecuted during a Democratic administration. That can’t be allowed.
Maduro has oil.
Whether he was read his Miranda rights is irrelevant to whether the arrest was legal. If he wasn’t read his rights any statements he made would not be allowed as evidence. It has no bearing on any other evidence they may have. In over 25 years I never once read anyone their rights upon arrest. That only happened prior to questioning.
Maybe I’m missing something, but wouldn’t Maduro’s best defense be to motion for dismissal based off of lack of jurisdiction? He could very convincingly argue that the U.S. has no more legal right to try him in U.S. court than Venezuela would to try Trump in court in Caracas.