ARREST OF MADURO BY US FORCES RAISES MAJOR JURISDICTION QUESTIONS, SAYS EXPERT

KUALA LUMPUR, Jan 6 (Bernama) -- The arrest of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro by United States (US) forces on Saturday (Jan 3) marks an “extraordinary” departure from established international norms, an academic said.

University of Nottingham Malaysia’s Associate Professor Dr Benjamin Barton said the move contrasts with established legal mechanisms.

He noted that arrest warrants for sitting heads of state are typically issued by the International Criminal Court (ICC) and enforced through cooperation among member states, rather than through unilateral “law and order” actions.

"It is quite extraordinary. It is not something which happens very often. What we have seen over the past two to three decades is arrest warrants issued by the International Criminal Court... typically these are rare occurrences,” he said on the Bernama World programme on Monday.

He warned that framing the arrest as a domestic “law and order” action rather than an act of war raises significant questions about jurisdiction.

“If that is the justification, that it is a domestic security concern… does this mean that US jurisdiction can override the jurisdiction of other sovereign states? That is a huge question mark,” he said.

Barton, who is also head of the university’s School of Politics, said the direct arrest of a sitting president is rare, it reflects a broader historical pattern of the US “actively involving itself in the domestic politics of neighbouring countries”.

Despite the US framing the intervention as a measure to combat drug trafficking and human smuggling for the "greater good" of the Venezuelan people, he warned this could backfire by galvanising local resistance.

"What we are going to see is pockets of resistance which are already shaping, pushing back against US attempts to run the show in Venezuela," he said.

-- BERNAMA