“Ok, first thing’s first: Who the hell are you and what are you doing here in my court today?”

That’s not a verbatim quote from 92-year-old Alvin Hellerstein, the judge tasked with presiding over Nicolas Maduro’s arraignment on Monday. But procedurally, that’s how these affairs begin — with the judge asking the defendant to identify him or herself.

When thusly prompted, the man standing before a court in Lower Manhattan confirmed that in fact, he was none other than Nicolas Maduro Moros, “President of the Republic of Venezuela.” “I was kidnapped,” he added, explaining how it came to be that he was in New York with his wife early this week.

A man accustomed to regaling a captive audience with long-winded harangues, Maduro was plainly intent on delivering a lengthly public lament. “I was captur–” he began. “There will be a time and place to get into all of this,” Hellerstein said, cutting him off.

For now, the judge told the accused, the court merely needed to know whether the man standing before it was indeed Nicolas Maduro. Because procedure demands it in America and also because the whole damn thing’s so surreal that everyone needs to be sure they aren’t dreaming.

As it turns out, Maduro didn’t have a chance to review the indictment on Saturday, which is understandable: He spent the morning being taken away at gunpoint from Caracas by US commandos, the afternoon sailing to New York on a US warship and the evening being jailed in Brooklyn.

Nor apparently, did Maduro get around to reading the charges against him on Sunday. “[This is] the very first time [I’ve seen it],” he told the judge, referring to the indictment. “Would you like me to read it to you?” Hellerstein wondered. Maduro politely declined. “I’d rather read it myself.”

He pleaded not guilty. “I’m innocent,” Maduro told the court. “I am a decent man.” His wife described herself as likewise “completely innocent.”

On his way out of the courtroom, Maduro said, “I’m a prisoner of war.”