Courtroom sketch shows Nicolas Maduro (2nd left), and his wife, Cilia Flores, attending their arraignment at Daniel Patrick Moynihan United States Courthouse on January 5, 2026. VENEZUELA’S new parliament opened on Monday with lawmakers chanting “Let’s go Nico!” as they forcibly denounced the recent capture of leftist leader Nicolas Maduro in a US military operation. “The president of the United States, Mr Trump, claims to be the prosecutor, the judge, and the policeman of the world,” senior lawmaker Fernando Soto Rojas told his colleagues in an inaugural session of Venezuela’s National Assembly.
“We say: you will not succeed. And we will ultimately deploy all our solidarity so that our legitimate president, Nicolas Maduro, returns victorious to Miraflores,” the presidential palace, he added. Maduro’s son, lawmaker Nicolas Maduro Moros, vowed in the same session that his toppled father and deposed first lady Cilia Flores “will return” to Venezuela.
“Sooner or later they will be with us… They will return,” he said. New members of Venezuela’s single-chamber parliament were chosen last May in elections boycotted by much of the opposition, leaving 256 of the 286 seats in the hands of the ruling United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) and its allies.
