Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and First Lady Cilia Flores. File photo.
The constitutional president of Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro, and First Lady and National Assembly Deputy Cilia Flores sent a message addressed to the people of Venezuela and the world, thanking them for their expressions of solidarity, support, and love. "We are well, strong, serene, and in constant prayer," the presidential couple stated in the message published on President Maduro's social media on Saturday, March 28. They also urged the Venezuelan people to keep strengthening peace, national unity, coexistence, and dialogue.
The message comes 48 hours after the Venezuelan presidential couple appeared in the second hearing of the illegal trial conducted against them by the United States, the country where they have been kept imprisoned since January 3, the day they were kidnapped by US troops who bombed areas of Caracas, Miranda, La Guaira, and Aragua, a criminal military invasion in which the US soldiers killed 120 people.
"We have received your communications, messages, emails, letters, and your prayers," expressed the presidential couple in a text published on President Maduro's Instagram account. "Every word of love, every gesture of affection, every expression of support fills our souls and strengthens us spiritually. We are well, strong, serene, and in constant prayer."
They expressed their admiration for the Venezuelan people's ability to stay united in difficult times, as well as their ability "to express love, awareness, and solidarity, within Venezuela and beyond our borders. The love that you send us becomes moral strength, inner fortitude, and a commitment to the highest values of life."
"Today more than ever we call upon you to continue strengthening the peace of the country, national unity, reconciliation, forgiveness, and union among everyone," they added in their words addressed to the Venezuelan people. "May no one stray from the path of dialogue, coexistence, and respect, for that is the path of the Homeland, that is the path of goodness."
President Maduro, who has always shown his faith and belief in God, quoted a passage from the Gospel of Saint Matthew: "Ask, and it will be given to you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you."
In this context, he added, "May you ask with faith, seek with hope, call with love, for the ways of God open for the peoples who persevere in truth, in peace, and in light."
"Thank you, from the bottom of our hearts, for your messages, for your letters, for your prayers, and for your immense love. Our gratitude, our prayer, and our spiritual embrace are with you, today, tomorrow, and always," concluded the message.
Protests in Venezuela and US Demand Freedom for Nicolás Maduro and Cilia Flores
The second hearing of President Maduro and Cilia Flores took place on Thursday, March 26, at the Federal Court for the Southern District of Manhattan. It started 40 minutes late and ended without a date for the next session.
The judge maintained the illegal imprisonment of Maduro and Flores and did not order lifting the blockade on the defense that the US Office of Foreign Assets Control imposed by withholding the funds to pay the President Maduro's lawyer. During the session, Judge Alvin Hellerstein said that he could reconsider his position if he determined that the US government acted in bad faith by withholding those funds.
At the hearing, Flores's attorney, Mark Donnelly, stated that she suffers from a heart condition called mitral valve prolapse. The judge authorized the request for her to undergo a specialized medical examination, including an electrocardiogram.
The first occasion on which the presidential couple attended a hearing at the Daniel Patrick Moynihan Federal Court of the Palace of Justice, presided over by Judge Alvin Hellerstein, was on January 5, when President Maduro declared himself a prisoner of war and reaffirmed that he is the constitutional president of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela. "I am innocent. I am a prisoner of war. I am a decent man. I adhere to the Geneva Convention. I remain the president of my country," he declared on that occasion.
On March 19, President Maduro's defense attorney, Barry J. Pollack, filed a motion in the Southern District Court of New York to dismiss all charges against President Maduro and First Lady Cilia Flores. The central argument was that Washington is actively violating the Sixth Amendment of the US Constitution and the right to due process, guaranteed to any accused on US soil, by preventing Venezuela from funding the defense of its head of state.
From the early hours of Thursday, March 26, people gathered in Plaza Bolívar in Caracas to demand the release of President Nicolás Maduro and First Lady Cilia Flores. Similar marches took place throughout Venezuela, as well as outside the courthouse in New York and in other parts of the world.
Translation: Orinoco Tribune
OT/SC/DZ
