The capture of Nicolas Maduro was quite the show, but it was a one-day spectacle.
To look at Brooklyn’s Metropolitan Detention Centre (MDC), you would hardly know it housed America’s “most unwanted” if it wasn’t for the add-ons across the street – the media and protesters out in their numbers.
The only outward sign of high security was a trio of armed officers, in military fatigues, on shuttle patrol between the flyover at one end of the building and the refuse tip at the other.
This is an industrial corner of Brooklyn and the MDC deals in the justice business, top end.
Previous inmates include Sean Diddy Combs, Ghislaine Maxwell and Sam Bankman-Fried, the crypto fraudster.
They were afforded accommodation arrangements that ensured degrees of separation from the general population, as much for their safety as anything else.
It’s to be assumed Nicolas Maduro will be subject to similar. At the MDC, they call it “special administrative measures”, which is more as in ‘measures’ than ‘special’. The tight security and isolation would test any man.
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And that’s before you get to the conditions inside, commonly criticised as unsafe and insanitary. Presidential, it’s not.
If the operation to get Maduro to the US was one logistical adventure, his journey from Brooklyn to a Manhattan courthouse will be another.
Today, he faces an arraignment hearing at midday local time (5pm UK time) – at which charges are typically read to the accused and they are invited to enter a plea.
It is a landmark case and it is box office.
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A number of professional “line sitters” have been hired to reserve places for media organisations wanting a space in court 26A for USA v Maduro Moros.
They typically charge $25 (£18.60) an hour and are more used to queuing for Broadway shows.
Trump in Venezuela is the reality performance everyone wants to see and, despite mixed reviews, it’s one he may yet take on tour.
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Cuba, Colombia and Greenland have all attracted the attention of the belligerent president in the hours since he captured Maduro.
There is much more to this developing story than what happens inside a New York courtroom.
Nicolas Maduro’s court appearance may be the hottest ticket in town but it’s almost, already, starting to feel like a sideshow.
