New US indictment charges former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro with torture

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.

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.

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.” —NEW YORK (AP)

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Sto­ry by PHILIP MARCE­LO and MICHAEL R. SISAK | As­so­ci­at­ed Press

As­so­ci­at­ed Press writ­ers Lar­ry Neumeis­ter and Jen­nifer Peltz in New York and Josh Good­man in Mi­a­mi con­tributed to this re­port.