For a decade, Venezuelan businessman Alejandro Betancourt has been ensnared in the tentacles of a sprawling Justice Department probe into a sophisticated billion-dollar money laundering scheme that US prosecutors allege embezzled funds from Venezuela’s state-owned oil company known as PDVSA.

The principle that sitting heads of state are immune from prosecution abroad is a longstanding tenet of international law seen as fundamental to diplomacy. Maduro's push to ​persuade Manhattan-based U.S. District Judge Alvin Hellerstein to dismiss the case will test U.S. courts' ⁠general ⁠reluctance to apply international law ⁠in criminal ​cases.