- Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, pleaded not guilty in January to drug and weapons charges. They have been detained in the United States since their stunning capture in Caracas earlier this year.
- Maduro’s lawyer did not immediately respond to Axios’ request for comment.
Driving the news: Maduro “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 political opposition,” alleges a superseding indictment filed in the Southern District of New York.
- The new indictment accuses Maduro and Flores of conspiracy to commit torture, alleging they engaged in a conspiracy to inflict “severe physical and mental pain and suffering in order to suppress and punish political opposition.”
What’s inside: The indictment describes a series of disturbing torture tactics – including electrocution, beatings, solitary confinement and simulated drowning – allegedly used under Maduro’s leadership to suppress political opposition.
- “As opposition to the ruling regime intensified,” Maduro allegedly “continued to oversee the development of a more systematic approach to illegally arrest and torture dissidents,” according to the indictment, ordering who would be arrested and tortured.
- An anonymous victim whom the indictment describes as “friendly” with “a famous opponent of the regime” was told by her captors that they would kill her young child, whose hair color they were referring to.
- It also details abuses against Americans, including one who was allegedly falsely accused of participating in a plot to kill Maduro. This victim was allegedly tortured with electric shocks, asphyxiation and forced injection of a substance which caused him to have convulsions.
Catch up quickly: Americans who were once imprisoned in Venezuela have accused Maduro of running a corruption network that used Americans as negotiating tools.
- In a lawsuit filed last year, Matthew Heath and Osman Khan, two Americans released in a 2022 prisoner exchange, claimed they were subjected to electrocution, suffocation, severe beatings, and deprivation of food and water, among other threats and forms of torture.
- Members of a group of oil executives, known as CITGO-6, also released in October 2022, claimed they were victims of physical and emotional torture while detained in Venezuela.
What’s next: Their trial is scheduled to begin June 1, 2027.
- Flores’ legal team requested her release before trial, citing her heart problems and saying that since her incarceration she had lost two molars and more than 25 pounds.
Go further: Maduro ally pleads guilty to money laundering
Editor’s note: This story has been updated with additional information throughout.
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