FORMER Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro and his wife will go on trial on drug-trafficking charges next June, a US judge has said, as the couple’s lawyers continue to object to their kidnapping by the US military.

On Wednesday, judge Alvin K Hellerstein set the June 1 2027 trial date at the request of lawyers for both sides. Under the approved schedule, defence lawyers will begin filing requests in early September to challenge the indictment and the couple will return to the courtroom on November 17 for oral arguments on the motions.

Mr Maduro, 63, and his wife, Cilia Flores, 69, have been held in a prison in New York’s Brooklyn district since US forces abducted them from their Caracas home in a middle-of-the-night raid and brought them to New York in early January.

Neither spoke during Wednesday’s 15-minute hearing as each sat separately at a defence table, surrounded by their lawyers. Both have pleaded not guilty.

They face potential life prison sentences if a jury agrees that they were part of a conspiracy to send cocaine into the US.

“I am not guilty. I am a decent man, the constitutional president of my country,” he said at his arraignment in January.

Mr Maduro’s lawyer, Barry Pollack, has said he expects to contest the legality of his client’s military abduction.

During the hearing, Mr Pollack vowed to first challenge the indictment on sovereign immunity grounds, because if that is successful, Mr Maduro won’t have to continue fighting the charges.

The lawyers have said there are complex legal defences that the court must address before a trial can begin.