A defiant Nicolas Maduro declared himself the president of my country as he protested his capture and pleaded not guilty on Monday to the federal drug trafficking charges that the Trump administration used to justify removing him from power. I was captured, Maduro said in Spanish as translated by a courtroom reporter before being cut off by the judge. Asked later for his plea to the charges, he stated: "I'm innocent. I am not guilty. I am a decent man, the president of my country. The courtroom appearance, Maduro's first since he and his wife were seized from their home in a stunning middle-of-the-night military operation, kick-starts the US government's most consequential prosecution in decades of a foreign head of state. The criminal case in Manhattan is unfolding against the diplomatic backdrop of an audacious US-engineered regime change that President Donald Trump has said will enable his administration to run the South American country. Maduro, wearing a blue jail uniform, was