Maduro and Wife Face New U.S. Torture Conspiracy Charges

Nicolas Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, have been added to a new federal indictment charging them with conspiracy to commit torture, according to CBS News. The superseding indictment was filed Thursday in the Southern District of New York, expanding the legal allegations against the former Venezuelan president and his spouse.

FBI Director Kash Patel highlighted the severity of the allegations in a social media statement, noting that the Maduro administration subjected more than a dozen American citizens to torture while in custody. “They will now answer for their crimes,” Patel said, citing methods that included drug administration, electrocution, and sexual assault.

The couple already faces a broad array of prior charges, including narco-terrorism conspiracy, cocaine importation, and illegal possession of machine guns and destructive devices. The 30-page document accuses them of managing a repression system backed by Venezuela’s military and intelligence services to silence dissent and maintain political control.

Prosecutors wrote that the regime presided over arbitrary detentions and torture, including electric shocks, asphyxiation, rape, forced nudity, prolonged isolation, starvation, and psychological terror involving threats against victims’ families. The indictment specifically references incidents involving U.S. citizens who were subjected to electric shocks, drowning simulations, severe beatings, and injections that induced seizures.

According to the filing, Maduro allegedly received regular updates on interrogations and directed officials to intensify abuse, once instructing them to “squeeze them harder” regarding a defiant prisoner. During 2014 political unrest, Maduro reportedly proposed kidnapping loyalist military officers to extract information through torture, a plan Flores allegedly supported.

Maduro and Flores were originally indicted in January by a federal grand jury for their alleged roles in a scheme to import thousands of tons of cocaine into the United States. They were subsequently taken into custody during an overnight U.S. military operation and transported to New York. Both have pleaded not guilty to the initial charges.

At a bail hearing for Flores on Thursday, Judge Henry J. Ricardo denied release despite her attorney’s request based on her heart condition. The judge cited her access to “considerable funds” and the gravity of the new accusations, stating, “The evidence is strong, very strong.” Flores’ counsel also sought a delay in arraignment on the new charges due to late receipt of the indictment, which the court granted.

The case proceeds in the same Southern District of New York court where Maduro and 14 others were first indicted in March 2020.