There was no dancing, let alone prancing, in the Brooklyn courtroom as former Venezuelan dictator Nicolas Maduro was arraigned on four charges, including narco-terrorism and weapons trafficking, following his capture by American forces on a military base in Caracas on Saturday. Instead, Maduro, whose terpsichorean moves to a musical remix of his ‘No War, Yes Peace’ speech had apparently incurred Trump’s ire, seemed like a shrunken figure as he appeared in prison attire and ankle shackles.

‘I’m still president,’ Maduro stated. But the no-nonsense 92-year-old federal Judge Alvin Hellerstein quashed his attempt at delivering a personal liberation theology speech. The dictator’s wife, Cilia Flores, the former first lady of Venezuela and crony of Hugo Chavez, was nursing a head injury and appeared to have suffered bruising near her right eye. It wasn’t exactly Nicolae Ceaușescu and his wife Elena facing a military trial and swift execution during Christmas 1989, but Maduro’s reign had clearly come to an ignominious terminus.

Freedom, elections and the democracy promoters are matters of........

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