Story by Iona Cleave
Nicolás Maduro held up the peace sign in new photographs of him posing inside a New York federal prison.
The ousted Venezuelan president, 63, and his wife, Cilia Flores, have been detained in the US for seven months after US forces captured them in a raid in Caracas in January.
In a post on his official X account, the autocratic former leader wrote that he and his wife “stand firm, with our hearts full of love” as they await trial on narco terrorism and drug-trafficking charges.
In the two pictures – dated June 25 – Mr Maduro is seen grinning as he holds up his fingers in the “V” shape while wearing a grey prison-issued tracksuit.
The post said Mr Maduro offered the pictures as a “small gift of hope and lift” to “all the noble people who love us”.
After quoting a passage from the bible, the post added: “God will provide. Venezuela will be reborn.”
Mr Maduro is seen in the Metropolitan Detention Centre in Brooklyn
They are the first known images of him inside the Metropolitan Detention Centre in Brooklyn. It is not clear who took the photographs or how they came to be posted on social media.
Mr Maduro served as president of Venezuela for more than 10 years until the Jan 3 raid on Caracas, which resulted in Mr Maduro being detained and brought to the US to face drugs and weapons charges.
He has denied all the charges and declared himself a “prisoner of war”.
In April, Washington allowed Venezuela to pay for the couple’s legal defence, something previously barred under US sanctions.
During Mr Maduro’s 2013-26 presidency, he was accused of carrying out political persecution, including ordering arbitrary detentions, torture and extra-judicial killings. Both of his re-elections, in 2018 and 2024, were widely rejected as fraudulent.
Since Mr Maduro’s capture, the Trump administration appointed Delcy Rodríguez, his former vice-president and close Maduro ally, to lead the country.
The US now effectively controls Venezuela’s oil revenues and reserves, with proceeds going into special accounts overseen by Washington.
On Friday, Donald Trump announced he had made the “biggest oil deal in world history” with Caracas, giving Washington majority control of 65 billion barrels of proven petroleum reserves.
The South American country has the world’s largest unproven crude oil reserves. The new 25-year deal intends to kick-start development in 17 of Venezuela’s most lucrative potential energy fields and pave the way for US corporations to lead the project.
Ms Rodríguez defended the deal on Saturday, calling it a “historic milestone” in the two countries’ bilateral relations that would “usher in a new era of recovery, growth, production, security and prosperity for our people”.
The agreement could be critical for US energy supplies at a time when they have been squeezed by the prolonged war with Iran.
On Saturday, dozens of pro-government groups protested in Caracas against US control in Venezuela. They marched with banners reading “We are neither a colony, nor a back yard” and “Yankees go home!”
