Prosecutors added a torture conspiracy count against Nicolás Maduro and Cilia Flores. They already face drug trafficking charges.
Ousted Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, face an additional U.S. criminal charge accusing them of conspiring to torture political opponents and American citizens to keep their grip on power, according to a superseding indictment filed Thursday in Manhattan federal court.
The new count of conspiracy to commit torture adds to the drug trafficking charges the couple already faced. The 30-page indictment says that from at least 1999 through 2025, the couple and high-ranking Venezuelan officials inflicted severe physical and mental pain to punish opponents, silence dissent and protect their authority, The New York Times reported. U.S. officials and human rights groups have long accused Venezuelan officials of torturing detainees, but this is the first time Maduro has faced criminal charges over the allegations, Reuters reported.
Prosecutors described two examples. In 2013, they said, Maduro ordered the arrest of a military officer he suspected of plotting a coup, and military counterintelligence agents then interrogated the officer, shocked the officer with a live electric wire about 20 times and hung the officer by the hands and feet. In 2022, they said, an American citizen detained while entering Venezuela and accused of plotting to kill Maduro was beaten and given electric shocks by counterintelligence officers.
Maduro, 63, and Flores, 69, were captured by the U.S. military on Jan. 3 at their home in Caracas and taken to New York. They pleaded not guilty to the drug charges, have been held at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn and are scheduled to stand trial on June 1, 2027. Maduro’s lawyers did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Flores’ lawyer, Mark Donnelly, told a hearing Thursday that he had not had time to review the new charges with her, and she was not asked to enter a plea.
At the same hearing, Flores asked U.S. District Judge Alvin Hellerstein to release her from jail for health reasons, saying she needs a cardiac procedure. Her lawyers proposed moving her to a residence in the New York area with round-the-clock private security. Prosecutors opposed the request, citing what they called an extreme risk of flight and danger to the public.
Venezuela has increased cooperation with the United States since the capture under Delcy Rodríguez, Maduro’s former vice president, Reuters reported.
This report is based on information from Reuters, via Business Day, and The New York Times, via Deccan Herald.