Trump ousting of Maduro draws parallels to US raid in Panama – but there are some major contrasts

By Fox News · Fox News

Ousted Venezuelan strongman Nicolás Maduro appeared for the first time in federal court in the U.S. on Monday, where the presiding judge ticked through the charges filed against him: narco-terrorism conspiracy, cocaine importation conspiracy, and weapons charges. Maduro, who pleaded not guilty, was defiant. "I’m still the president of my country," he said, furiously scribbling on a legal pad for the duration of the arraignment. "I’m a prisoner of war," he proclaimed later, as he was led out of the court and back to the Brooklyn detention center where he is being held. Maduro’s remarks underpinned a key argument his legal team is expected to use in defending him – arguing that he was illegally captured by U.S. troops, and that he is immune from prosecution in the U.S. as the leader of a sovereign foreign nation. His lawyers won’t be the first to try to advance that argument in court. In fact, Maduro’s case bears some notable (if early) parallels to the U.S. invasion of another Latin American country, 36 years prior, in which 26,000 U.S. troops descended into Panama to arrest the country's authoritarian leader, Manuel Noriega, and bring him to the U.S. to be tried on federal criminal charges in Miami. The U.S. arrest of Noriega, dubbed Operation "Just Cause," could be used as a playbook of sorts for prosecutors as they present their case against Maduro and his wife in the Southern District in New York. Here are some of the biggest similarities, and differences, between the two cases. DEFIANT MADURO DECLARES HE IS A 'PRISONER OF WAR' IN FIRST US COURT APPEARANCE On Dec. 20, 1989, under then-President George H.W. Bush, U.S. forces launched a surprise invasion of Panama that resulted in Noriega's arrest nearly two weeks later. Like Maduro, Noriega's lawyers centered their case on the argument that he was arrested illegally by U.S. troops in his home country, and that as a foreign leader, he could not be criminally charged in other countries. But Maduro's argument here c…