FORMER Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro and his wife will go on trial on drug trafficking charges next June, a judge said yesterday, as their lawyers continue to object to the US military action that snatched them from power.

Judge Alvin K Hellerstein set the June 1 trial date at the request of lawyers on both sides. Under the approved schedule, defence lawyers will begin filing requests in early September to challenge the indictment and the couple will return to the courtroom November 17 for oral arguments on the motions.

Maduro, 63, and his wife, Cilia Flores, 69, have been held at a Brooklyn jail since US forces seized them from their Caracas home in a middle-of-the-night raid and brought them to New York in early January.