How Maduro could face death penalty if convicted of charges as US Attorney General speaks out

There's a possibility that Nicolás Maduro could be placed on death row if he is convicted of the crimes he's been charged with.

On Friday night (January 2), Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, were captured from the home in Caracas, Venezuela, and transported to the US.

It was an extremely complex mission to get to Maduro, 150 military aircraft were used by Delta Force which led the extraction.

When on US soil, Maduro was slapped with a series of criminal charges, those being: Narco-Terrorism Conspiracy, Cocaine Importation Conspiracy, Possession of Machineguns and Destructive Devices, and Conspiracy to Possess Machineguns and Destructive Devices against the United States.

An indictment that was unsealed by Attorney General Pam Bondi over the weekend revealed that Maduro and Flores aren't the only ones facing charges.

Maduro's son, Nicolás Maduro Guerra, Diosdado Cabello Rondón (the former VP of Venezuela), politician Ramón Rodríguez Chacín, and Hector Rusthenford Guerrero Flores are named in the indictment as well.

Maduro and his wife are due in New York federal court later today (January 5). They will stand before 92-year-old Judge Alvin Hellerstein and be formally charged on drugs and weapon counts, BBC News reports. It is thought that the pair will enter their pleas during the arraignment.

With the nature of the crimes that Maduro is being accused of, he could be eligible for the death penalty should he later be convicted.

Typically, the death penalty is handed out for murders, but it can be enforced if convicted criminals are found to be guilty of other capital crimes. There are around 60 crimes that are eligible for capital punishment, per the Federal Death Penalty Act of 1994.

Nicolas Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, seen in handcuffs (XNY/Star Max/GC Images)

The Library of Congress states: "The Federal Death Penalty Act recognizes other capital offenses that do not necessarily involve murder: treason, espionage, large-scale drug trafficking, and attempted murder to obstruct a drug kingpin investigation."

The death penalty to be handed for this type of crime is less common, says the New York Post.

On Saturday, Bondi said that Flores and Maduro 'will soon face the full wrath of American justice on American soil in American courts'.

She continued: "On behalf of the entire U.S. DOJ, I would like to thank President Trump for having the courage to demand accountability on behalf of the American People, and a huge thank you to our brave military who conducted the incredible and highly successful mission to capture these two alleged international narco traffickers."

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