U.S. authorities charged former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro with conspiring to torture his fellow citizens in order to maintain his hold on power. The new indictment, unsealed Thursday, adds pressure on the ousted authoritarian leader already fighting drug trafficking offenses.
Maduro, who was previously charged with participating in a conspiracy to send cocaine into the U.S., is now also facing allegations of human rights abuses during his reign as president of the oil-rich South American nation.
“He authorized the use of torture against specific individuals and oversaw a system designed to use torture, arbitrary detention and violence as a means of repression against the political opposition,” says the revised indictment, which newly charges Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, with torture conspiracy.
The revised indictment accuses the couple of staying in power by “terrorizing perceived opponents through persecution and violence,” saying thousands of Venezuelans were “harassed, threatened, arrested, prosecuted, assaulted, tortured, or killed” by people acting at the behest of the government he controlled.
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The allegations include electric shocks, beatings and asphyxiation at Maduro's behest. The indictment accuses the ex-president of signing off on methods of torture and personally threatening the killing of one prisoner’s child “as a form of psychological torture.”
A message seeking comment was sent to Maduro's lawyer; Flores' attorney was due in court for a previously scheduled hearing. Both Maduro and Flores have been behind bars in New York since early January when forces seized them from their Caracas home in a middle-of-the-night raid.
Both have pleaded not guilty in the criminal case first brought years ago against them and numerous alleged co-conspirators. They had already been facing potential life prison sentences if convicted.
Flores was scheduled to be in court Thursday, where her lawyers will urge a judge to free her from jail and put her under house arrest because she has heart problems.
Their attorneys have asked for the case to be dismissed on the grounds that they have immunity as the leader and first lady of a foreign country.
Lawyers for Flores, 69, have also argued that she has medical issues that cannot be treated effectively in jail, and that she could instead be allowed to live under 24-hour guard at a residence in New York.
They also said she suffered permanent scarring when she was “thrown against a wall or dresser” during the U.S. military action that led to her capture.
Her lawyers say she has lost 25 pounds (11 kilograms) while imprisoned at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn and has been told that she might need heart surgery. They said she has “lingering lightheadedness, dizziness and shortness of breath” and might have suffered a minor heart attack in July.
Prosecutors opposed the bail request. In a court filing, they wrote that Flores would pose an “extreme risk of flight and danger to the public” if released. They also said she has been taken from the jail to get treatment at a local hospital, when care was needed.
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President Donald Trump’s administration has defended the raid to capture Maduro as a “surgical law enforcement operation.” Maduro has called himself a prisoner of war and his capture a kidnapping.
Flores is charged with participating in a cocaine importation conspiracy with her husband, Maduro, who served as Venezuela's president from 2013 until his capture by American forces in January.
Lawyers for Flores said she was no threat to flee because she is “intent on supporting her husband with her constant presence.”
