Updated ,first published
New York: The United Nations said on Monday it was “deeply concerned” that the US had not respected the rule of international law and the precedent it may set.
“I am deeply concerned about the possible intensification of instability in the country, the potential impact on the region, and the precedent it may set for how relations between and among states are conducted,” António Guterres, the secretary general of the United Nations, said in a statement.
The statement was read at an emergency meeting of the United Nations Security Council on Monday (Tuesday AEDT).
It came as deposed Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cecilia Flores, arrived at a New York courthouse where they are set to be indicted.
Handcuffed and surrounded by heavily armed federal agents and NYPD police officers, they were taken from their prison cells at the Metropolitan Detention Centre in Brooklyn on Monday morning.
They were flown about 9km by helicopter to a helipad in Wall Street, and then transported in an armoured truck the short distance to the court precinct in Lower Manhattan.
Scores of heavily armed agents and NYPD police officers guarded them as the high-security transfer took place.
They will face a federal court judge in Manhattan in a few hours, about 4am AEDT, where they will be indicted on numerous charges including narco-terrorism and conspiracy to import cocaine, according to an unsealed indictment.
Maduro and Flores were extradited to the US on Saturday night following their capture in an audacious military campaign by US forces that had been months in the planning.
The dramatic capture has emboldened Donald Trump who implied last night that he could take military action in Colombia and Greenland, and told Mexico to get its “act together”.
More to come
