U.S. Prosecutors Charge Maduro and Wife with Conspiracy to Commit Torture
Prosecutors in the United States have accused Venezuela’s former leader Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, of conspiracy to commit torture. The new charges were revealed on Thursday and add to the drug‑trafficking and weapons crimes already facing the pair, which they deny.
Maduro, 63, and Flores, 69, have been in custody since January in a detention centre in Brooklyn after U.S. forces seized them in a pre‑dawn raid on their compound in Caracas. Human rights groups in Venezuela and former prisoners have long accused the country’s jails of systematic torture.
The latest accusations claim that U.S. citizens held in Venezuela while Maduro was in power were tortured in violation of international law. The trial is set to begin in June 2027.
Image: Nicolás Maduro in U.S. custody – Reuters/Jane Rosenberg
