Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro, captured by US special forces, and his wife Cilia Flores returned on Thursday to a federal courtroom in New York, where a judge rejected an attempt by one of their lawyers to have drug trafficking charges against them dismissed, NBC News reports.

Judge Alvin Hellerstein indicated that the long-awaited trial would proceed after Maduro’s lawyer, Barry Pollack, argued that the drug trafficking charges should be dropped because the US government is not allowing them to pay for their defense.

Before adjourning the hearing for the day, Judge Hellerstein did not say when he would decide whether Maduro would be allowed to use Venezuelan government funds for his defense.

Dressed in beige prison uniforms and seated apart from each other by their lawyers, Maduro and his wife wore headsets to listen to the proceedings translated into Spanish and appeared to follow the arguments closely. As the hearing ended, Maduro shook his lawyer’s hand and told him, “Hasta mañana,” meaning “See you tomorrow.” US Marshals then quickly escorted him and his wife out of the courtroom.

The former first couple of Venezuela arrived at the courthouse in Lower Manhattan before dawn. Security was extremely tight, and shortly before the hearing began, large groups of supporters and opponents of US President Donald Trump’s administration’s capture of the Venezuelan leader held loud demonstrations outside under heavy police supervision.