De­posed Venezue­lan leader Nicolás Maduro de­clared him­self “in­no­cent” and a “de­cent man” as he plead­ed not guilty to fed­er­al drug traf­fick­ing charges in a US court­room yes­ter­day. “I’m in­no­cent. I am not guilty. I am a de­cent man, the pres­i­dent of my coun­try,” Maduro told a judge.

Maduro was mak­ing his first ap­pear­ance in an Amer­i­can court­room on the nar­co-ter­ror­ism charges Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump‘s ad­min­is­tra­tion used to jus­ti­fy cap­tur­ing him and bring­ing him to New York.

Maduro, wear­ing a blue jail uni­form, and his wife were led in­to court around noon for a brief, but re­quired, le­gal pro­ceed­ing that will like­ly kick off a pro­longed le­gal fight over whether he can be put on tri­al in the US.