Trump shares image of Venezuela’s Maduro blindfolded and handcuffed
The captured president will face indictments charging them with narcoterrorism
US PRESIDENT Donald Trump posted a photograph on social media on Saturday (Dec 3) that he said was of the captured Venezuelan president, Nicolas Maduro, on board a US warship hours after the United States seized him in Caracas, the Venezuelan capital.
The picture showed a man in a gray sweatshirt and sweatpants, blindfolded and handcuffed, with a bottle of water in his right hand.
“Nicolas Maduro on board the USS Iwo Jima,” Trump captioned the photo, minutes before he addressed the nation from Mar-a-Lago, his Florida resort, and announced that America was “going to run” Venezuela.
The USS Iwo Jima is an amphibious assault ship and one of the American warships that have been prowling the Caribbean in recent weeks; it brought aboard survivors of an American boat strike in October.
Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, were taken from Caracas, the capital, by helicopter to the Iwo Jima, the president said in an interview with Fox and Friends.
“A nice flight,” Trump said. “I’m sure they loved it. But they’ve killed a lot of people.”
Maduro and his wife were en route Saturday to New York, where they will face indictments charging them with narcoterrorism and conspiracy to import cocaine.
The photo of what appears to be Maduro blindfolded and handcuffed was striking, as it was the first photo of the captured leader made public after the attack.
It came hours after Delcy Rodriguez, who had been Maduro’s vice-president, demanded the US provide proof that Maduro and his wife were still alive.
Trump said he and his team had watched the raid on video feeds as it occurred, subsequently posting what appeared to be photos of himself and other senior Cabinet members, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, watching the attack in real time.
Iconic photos documenting key moments in American military operations have often come from the Situation Room in the White House, where former president Barack Obama and his national security team observed the mission to kill Osama bin Laden, and Trump and his team monitored the operation that eliminated Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the former leader of the Islamic State, during his first term.
Photos of those targets, who were both killed, were not released to the public. NYTIMES
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