President Donald Trump has shared a photo of a blindfolded Nicolás Maduro in U.S. custody.
The Venezuelan leader, who was abruptly captured by U.S. forces along with his wife in the early hours of Saturday morning, is pictured wearing gray sweats and headphones.
The image appears hastily cropped, and Maduro is holding a bottle of water. He seems to be in handcuffs and being held by a federal agent wearing a “DEA” vest.
Trump, 79, said that the South American leader, 63, is aboard the USS Iwo Jima heading for New York, where he will face drugs and weapons charges in Manhattan federal court.
A photo of Maduro’s captured wife, Cilia Flores, was not shared by the president.
A former commander tells CNN that it is likely Maduro and Flores are being held inside an officer’s state room aboard the Iwo Jima, which is an amphibious assault ship of the U.S. Navy.
The image of Maduro echoes those taken of detainees in the war on terror decades ago.
The Australian David Hicks, who joined al-Qaeda and fought against U.S. forces, was also photographed in handcuffs with his hearing and sight blocked by a mask and headphones when he was detained in 2002. He was imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay.
Trump announced in a late morning news conference that no U.S. service members were killed or equipment lost in the raid on Caracas, the Venezuelan capital. He revealed that he watched the operation play out from Mar-a-Lago.
“If you would have seen what I saw last night, you would have been very impressed,” he said. “I’m not sure that you’ll ever get to see it, but it was an incredible thing to see not a single American service member was killed and not a single piece of American equipment was lost.”
Trump threatened that other leaders in Venezuela could be next.
“All political and military figures of Venezuela should know what happened to Maduro can happen to them, and it will happen to them if they do bad to their people,” he said.
