Caracas (theassemblymedia.com) — United Nations Special Rapporteur Ben Saul issued a briefing note arguing that US military strikes outside the country against alleged criminal groups, extrajudicial killings, and the abduction of President Nicolás Maduro violated international law and human rights.
In an 11-page report issued on September 20, Saul stated that Maduro’s “transboundary” abduction by the United States violated Article 9 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), which prohibits arbitrary detention. The UN Special Rapporteur emphasized that the Venezuelan leader “was entitled to head of State immunity before United States courts.”
“International law does not permit extraterritorial law enforcement to arrest individuals without the foreign State’s consent,” the briefing states. It adds that “the use of force also violated Venezuela’s sovereignty and the international duty of non-intervention.”
On January 3, the Trump administration launched a military operation in Venezuela under the pretext of countering the alleged “Cartel of the Suns,” supposedly led by Maduro himself. The nighttime assault resulted in the abduction of Maduro and his wife, elected congresswoman Cilia Flores, and their transfer to a federal court in New York to face narco-terrorism charges. The trial is set for June 2027.
Saul’s report advances Maduro’s legal defense. On November 17, his defense team will submit a motion to dismiss the case on the grounds of sovereign immunity, arguing that he was a sitting head of state kidnapped from his home in Caracas. US District Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein is presiding over the highly politicized, high-profile trial. International law scholars and institutions have ratified that Washington violated the immunity of a sitting head of state, Venezuela’s state sovereignty, and the UN Charter.
The narco-state claims
The case against the presidential couple is based on a superseding indictment issued by the US Justice Department shortly after their abduction. The charges rest on accusations made by US officials over many years as part of the first Trump administration (2017-2020) regime change plans against Caracas. The campaign included the imposition of economic sanctions that blockaded its oil industry and worsened the country’s economic crisis.
Shortly after Maduro’s abduction, the US Justice Department quietly dropped claims linking him to the so-called “Cartel of the Suns,” cutting references to the group in the indictment from 32 to just two. Prosecutors abandoned the specific allegation that the Venezuelan president led a narco-state, replacing it with references to a “patronage system” and a “culture of corruption.” The revised indictment could allow the US government to avoid having to prove at trial that the cartel exists or that Maduro led it.
The allegation that a cartel was run by the Venezuelan government dates back six years before Maduro’s abduction. In March 2020, then-Attorney General William Barr announced a US$15 million bounty for Maduro’s capture or for information leading to his arrest. The bounty was raised to $25 million in January 2025 and $50 million in August. In November 2025, the Trump administration designated the “Cartel of the Suns” a terrorist organization, doubling down on claims that senior Venezuelan government officials led it.
The so-called “Cartel of the Suns” has not been cited by international anti-drug agencies. The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime’s 2025 World Drug Report did not identify Venezuela as a significant drug-producing or transit country compared with the Pacific corridor running through countries allied with Washington. Venezuela has also been at the forefront of drug seizures in recent years, reporting a record number in 2025 with nearly 66 tons, up more than 64 percent from the previous year, according to National Anti-Drug Superintendent Danny Ferrer.
Washington has also accused Maduro of forging alliances with transnational criminal groups, including Mexico’s Sinaloa Cartel and the now-defunct Tren de Aragua (TDA). No evidence has been presented to support the alleged connection to the Sinaloa Cartel. Tren de Aragua began as a prison gang in Aragua state, in north-central Venezuela, and was dismantled in a police-military raid in 2023. Although some members escaped, there is no evidence that the gang regrouped outside Venezuela or developed into a large-scale drug-trafficking organization.
A declassified US intelligence memo released in April 2025 by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) concluded that the Maduro government neither controlled nor maintained a cooperative relationship with Tren de Aragua. The memo said the Venezuelan state considered the decentralized gang an internal threat and that security forces periodically clashed with its members, resulting in deaths.
In February 2025, the Trump administration designated Tren de Aragua a terrorist organization. The following month, it invoked the Alien Enemies Act to expel Venezuelan migrants, claiming that the Venezuelan government had orchestrated an “invasion.”
In his report, the UN Special Rapporteur found “no factual basis for assertions that some listed groups were armed proxies sent by Venezuela.” He rejected the claim that “criminal violence” amounted to an “invasion” or “predatory incursion” and found no justification for Washington to declare a “non-international armed conflict” with alleged cartels.
“Even if Venezuela had sent the group [Tren de Aragua], the insurmountable legal barrier remains: drug trafficking is not equivalent to a military attack,” the document said.
Extrajudicial killings and oil blockade
In August 2025, Washington deployed military assets to waters off Venezuela, including guided-missile destroyers, amphibious assault ships, and aircraft. The following month, the US military began striking small vessels at sea, killing their crews extrajudicially. US officials claimed the vessels were carrying drugs and heading for the United States but presented no evidence and there were no attempts at boarding the boats and charging their occupiers. A few crew members who survived the strikes were never charged with a crime. According to an investigation by Airwaves, more than 300 people had been killed in the strikes by late August 2026.
Saul, an expert on the promotion and protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms while countering terrorism, said the use of force against the vessels was neither necessary nor proportionate as their crews posed no imminent threat to the US military or anyone else.
“There is no international right to use force to suppress alleged ‘narco-terrorism,’” Saul emphasized. He added that the killings “constituted crimes against humanity of murder under customary international law.”
The military build-up off Venezuela’s coast was also used to blockade oil shipments entering or leaving Venezuelan ports. The UN expert clarified that the blockade could “amount to an armed attack” against Venezuela and contravened Article 2(4) of the UN Charter.
Since the abduction of President Maduro in January, the Trump administration went on to take control over Venezuela’s oil exports withholding revenue in a US-controlled account to which Caracas does not have direct access and must petition for allotments. The UN human rights expert noted that this as an escalation that violates “Venezuela’s sovereignty, the duty of non-intervention, the right of economic self-determination, and the principle of permanent sovereignty over natural resources.”
The report also said that a June 13 US military strike in Venezuela’s southern Bolívar state—carried out in coordination with Venezuelan authorities and targeting Héctor Rusthenford Guerrero Flores, the alleged leader of Tren de Aragua—lacked legal authority because no armed conflict involved the criminal group.
“The attack would have violated the right to life if he did not present an imminent lethal threat to others at the time, and if the airstrike was not necessary as a last resort and as the least intrusive means of responding,” the report said.
The Special Rapporteur concluded that the Venezuelan state could not lawfully consent to an extrajudicial killing on its territory, even “freely given” because such consent would occur in the shadow of the early-2026 military intervention that resulted in President Maduro’s abduction and a change in Venezuela’s leadership.
At least 23 UN experts have condemned the military operation against Venezuela recalling the region’s “scars of colonial and imperialist interventions.”