Argentina requests extradition of Maduro from US on crimes against humanity charges
BUENOS AIRES, Argentina — An Argentine judge on Wednesday requested the extradition from the United States of former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, who was captured by the U.S. military last month and now faces federal charges of narcoterrorism and conspiracy to import cocaine into New York.
The investigation in Argentina, whose judges have aggressively prosecuted cases of human rights abuses beyond its borders, accuses Maduro of committing crimes against humanity by overseeing a harsh crackdown on protesters and political opponents as president.
“The urgent translation of the international application and the documents attached thereto is hereby ordered,” says the warrant, signed by Argentine federal judge Sebastián Ramos and seen by the Associated Press.
The plaintiffs include Venezuelans who suffered, among other abuses, torture, arbitrary detention and enforced disappearances at the hands of Venezuelan security forces and intelligence agents.
The case, filed in Buenos Aires in 2023 by human rights organizations representing victims, relies on the principle of universal jurisdiction, a legal concept that allows anyone from any country who commits crimes like genocide or terrorism anywhere in the world to be prosecuted in Argentina.
Argentina’s Foreign Ministry must now present the request to the Trump administration, which is unlikely to act on it as Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores await trial in a Brooklyn jail on charges of working with drug cartels to facilitate the shipment of thousands of tons of cocaine to the United States over a 25-year period.
Nonetheless, one of the organizations that filed the case hailed the request as an important step “for Argentina, for justice and especially for the Venezuelan victims who dared to speak out.”
“Beyond this specific resolution, there remains the satisfaction of having stood up to the powerful who fiercely defend human rights,” writes the Argentine Forum for the Defense of Democracy.
In asking the United States to hand over Maduro to Argentina, the mandate cites the 1997 extradition treaty between the two countries and acknowledges Maduro’s recent capture.
An Argentine court first issued an international arrest warrant for Maduro in 2024. Following the U.S. military operation that ousted Maduro on Jan. 3, Argentine federal prosecutors asked Judge Ramos to seek extradition for the investigation into crimes against humanity.
As one of the few countries whose law allows cases of crimes against humanity to be investigated beyond its borders, Argentina has increasingly taken center stage in trials ranging from the torture of dissidents under the Franco dictatorship in Spain to atrocities committed by the military against Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar.
Argentine President Javier Milei, the region’s most prominent right-wing leader and an ally of President Donald Trump, welcomed the U.S. military capture of Maduro.
