{"id":702,"date":"2026-01-15T09:47:12","date_gmt":"2026-01-15T09:47:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.cranleigh.org\/politics\/?p=702"},"modified":"2026-01-15T09:47:12","modified_gmt":"2026-01-15T09:47:12","slug":"was-president-maduros-capture-legal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.cranleigh.org\/politics\/2026\/01\/15\/was-president-maduros-capture-legal\/","title":{"rendered":"Was President Maduro&#8217;s capture legal?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Jack K &#8211; LVI<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>On the 3rd of January 2026 President Maduro of Venezuela was \u201ckidnapped\u201d by Delta Force<br>(American special forces). The orders were put out by the department of war and Donald<br>Trump the American President. With help from the CIA and over 150 support aircraft Delta<br>Force entered Fuerto Tiuna which is Venezuela&#8217;s largest military facility holding many<br>government officials and is heavily fortified. The power grid and air defenses were both shut<br>down in order to aid Delta Force commandos, with them apparently finding and arresting<br>Nicolas Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores before they could close the door on their secure<br>steel bunker. The two were transported by the USS Iwo Jima to the United States with<br>Maduro being transported to Manhattan federal court in New York City on January 5th.<br>Maduro is being charged with narco-terrorism, cocaine importation, weapons possession<br>and other charges. In December last year Trump classified fentanyl as a weapon of mass<br>destruction. This is being used as an excuse by the Trump administration on why they<br>captured Maduro as fentanyl is a big illegal trade in Venezuela.<br>So is this actually legal, well under international law article 2 subsection 4 \u201cAll Members shall<br>refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial<br>integrity or political independence of any State, or in any other manner inconsistent with the<br>Purposes of the United Nations.\u201d This means any country under the United Nations cannot<br>breach a country&#8217;s sovereignty by force which just happened to Venezuela, But there are 2<br>exceptions to this law being the right to self defense or the UN security council voting if the<br>country is a threat to international peace. Trump did not have the allowance by the UN<br>Security Council to capture Maduro and take over Venezuela so that only leaves self<br>defense. In order to preach self defense a country would have to be hit by an armed attack<br>and use appropriate and proportional force to retaliate against the attacker. America is<br>currently arguing self defense on the terms that the attack on Venezuela was a preemptive<br>strike to halt the loss of American life through drugs imported by Venezuela though only<br>around 5% of cocaine is exported out of Venezuela to America.<br>Trump and his Team are saying that domestic legal rationale on self defense overpowers the<br>international laws view on self defense. This is seen in an interview with Marco Rubio the<br>Secretary of State saying their justification for taking over Venezuela and abducting Maduro<br>is that it was passed by a US court order allowing US law enforcement to arrest Maduro.<br>This is not the first time this has happened either with the US invading Panama in 1989 and<br>capturing its dictator Manuel Noriega. The US Justice Department released a document<br>some time ago stating that article 2(4) of international law does not stop the president from<br>authorising forcible abductions. This just shows America&#8217;s main argument that this isn\u2019t war<br>but merely an arrest that follows US law and international law does not apply.<br>Countries around the world have commented on Maduro&#8217;s abduction with France, Spain,<br>Russia, China and many other countries condemning the US for a clear violation of<br>international law against Venezuela but countries like Israel, Argentina and The United<br>Kingdom actually does support the capture of Maduro as Kier Starmer describes Maduro as<br>an illegitimate leader due to Maduro remaining in power after losing election. Though Kier<br>has not taken a side on the control of Venezuela by the US, Kier would like to have a<br>leadership election for Venezuela.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In conclusion the US actively broke international law with the take over of Venezuela and the<br>capture of Maduro though it is very complicated and there is yet to be a fully clear statement<br>from the United Nations on America&#8217;s actions and even so the United Nations would<br>probably not do anything about it as ordering the US to return Maduro would be foolish as he<br>is a dictator and would go straight to power again due to his many loyalists. What\u2019s most<br>likely to come out of this is a condemnation from the UN to the US about the takeover of<br>Venezuela and if the US continues to hold Venezuela the UN might have to intervene due to<br>the clear motives of oil in Venezuela. There is no simple answer to the legality of Maduro&#8217;s<br>capture due to the complexity of this situation, only thing that I can say is that America has<br>broken international law but have too much power to receive consequences.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Jack K &#8211; LVI On the 3rd of January 2026 President Maduro of Venezuela was \u201ckidnapped\u201d by Delta Force(American special&hellip;<br \/><a class=\"pull-right read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/blogs.cranleigh.org\/politics\/2026\/01\/15\/was-president-maduros-capture-legal\/\">Continue reading<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":32,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-702","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorised"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.7 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Was President Maduro&#039;s capture legal? 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