Nicolás Maduro indictment: Ex-Venezuelan president, wife plead not guilty to new charges of torture of U.S. citizens

Ousted former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, pleaded not guilty in federal court in Manhattan on Thursday to torturing Americans and his own citizens in what prosecutors contend was a brutal attempt to suppress political dissent and intimidate his narcotrafficking rivals.

Prosecutors charge that the South American strongman, whom U.S. soldiers captured in an early-morning raid of the country’s presidential palace on Jan. 3, used "electric shock, asphyxiation, rape, forced nudity, prolonged isolation, starvation, punishment cells, and psychological torture."

A bespectacled Maduro entered the courtroom in tan prison scrubs and shackles. He looked thinner than his last appearance, his hair and mustache graying. He waved to the gallery and shook hands with his attorneys before nodding to the press in the jury box.

When asked whether he had read the indictment and was prepared to enter his plea, Maduro began to make a speech.

"I’ve seen that it is the sum of concepts that have already been presented previously, of false allegation and false testimony against me," he said through an interpreter. "I object to this document entirely of false allegations and false testimony."

Before he could continue, U.S. District Judge Alvin Hellerstein cut him off and ordered a not guilty plea to be entered into the record.

Flores, who said she's lost 25 pounds and two teeth during her time in lockup, also pleaded not guilty to the new charges, which were unsealed last week.

"I am completely innocent. I am not guilty," she said.

In light of the added human rights charges, Hellerstein agreed to a request from prosecutors and the defense team to push the trial date back two weeks to June 14.

Federal authorities originally indicted Maduro in 2020, claiming he and others controlled a powerful narcotrafficking operation that utilized the resources of the Venezuelan government and military to move cocaine through Central America and across the Caribbean into the United States.

Maduro, who came up under the late dictator Hugo Chávez, and Flores held a series of high government posts until Maduro rose to the presidency in 2013. He was reelected in 2018 in a highly disputed election contested by many countries, including the United States.

Prosecutors charge that the couple corrupted the Venezuelan government, including the military, judiciary and law enforcement, using bribery and coercion to further their drug enterprise.

Particularly, the country’s state-owned oil company was rife with corruption and graft, according to the indictment.

Maduro orchestrated the torture of at least three U.S. citizens, according to the indictment, imprisoning them in Boleíta Norte, a notorious Caracas prison, or in building basements where they were often stripped naked and beaten. Prosecutors said some prisoners were forced to drink noxious liquids, suffered forced injections and had electrodes attached to their genitals.

The former leader strategized over the torture of some of the victims, giving suggestions for how to break them.

"If an arrestee was refusing to talk, Maduro would ask questions, including 'what can we do to make them talk,' and would encourage bringing additional 'pressure,' " according to court papers. "On occasion, Maduro made suggestions for particular torture techniques, saying 'do not let them sleep,' or 'pour water on them,' at times laughing after hearing about the abuse of prisoners."

Drug rivals and political dissidents received equally brutal treatment by the Maduro regime, prosecutors allege.

Using soldiers in the Bolivarian National Guard, agents in the Venezuelan Directorate of Military Intelligence and a network of political cronies referred to as the Cartel of the Suns, Maduro and his wife oversaw the transportation of thousands of kilograms of cocaine to the United States, the prosecutor said.

Maduro ordered the murder of a Venezuelan drug dealer who owed money on drugs supplied by his network, according to court papers. An official in the regime suspected of disloyalty was attacked by soldiers, beaten with a shovel and rifle butts before being kicked in the groin, shot in the leg and raped with a broomstick, prosecutors said.

The couple and their network coordinated with known terrorist organizations like the FARC in Colombia, the indictment said. In 2013, when Maduro believed that a military officer was meeting with a political rival, he had the officer kidnapped by the FARC, then beaten and electrically shocked during an interrogation regarding a suspected coup attempt. The interrogators eventually forced a confession, prosecutors said.

Aside from his not guilty plea, the former president claims that the United States illegally captured him, violating Venezuelan sovereignty. Maduro’s lawyers have filed a motion to dismiss the case, arguing that as the head of state he is protected by sovereign immunity and cannot be prosecuted.

The judge set a Nov. 17 date to hear arguments on that motion.