The Trump administration unveiled new charges accusing deposed Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro and his wife of ordering torture against Americans and others.
On Thursday, prosecutors rolled out a superseding indictment that adds physical and psychological torture counts against Maduro and Cilia Flores after his capture and transfer to the United States. The new filing builds on earlier narco-terrorism and cocaine trafficking accusations that both defendants have already answered with not-guilty pleas.
The Hill reported that the Trump administration is now accusing the pair of ordering abuse that included electric shocks, beatings, and asphyxiation aimed at Americans and others viewed as threats.
A superseding indictment is a fresh charging paper that replaces or expands the earlier case. Here it ties alleged repression directly to the protection of illegal narcotics activity and political control inside Venezuela.
The indictment alleges Maduro did more than look the other way. It says he authorized torture against specific people, approved the methods, demanded updates on how particular victims were treated, and watched a video of a forced confession.
In one recounted episode, he personally threatened to kill a prisoner’s child. Prosecutors describe that threat as psychological torture.
The charging paper states that when Maduro became president of Venezuela in or about 2013, he took the system further.
"When MADURO MOROS became President of Venezuela in or about 2013, 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."
Prosecutors also claim the abuse started earlier. The indictment says Maduro ordered torture as early as 2006, years before he took the top office.
According to the filing, Maduro and Flores did not rely only on street enforcers. They allegedly turned military officials assigned to their own protective details into instruments of coercion.
"used military officials assigned to their protective details to torture and intimidate individuals viewed as disloyal or a threat to their illegal narcotics activity."
The same document asserts that people acting at the behest of Maduro’s government harassed, threatened, arrested, prosecuted, assaulted, tortured, or killed thousands of Venezuelans. The language frames a broad apparatus of repression, not isolated excesses.
"presided over this system of repression and torture"
That phrase is aimed squarely at Maduro. His wife faces a parallel accusation rooted in family interests.
"ordered that individuals be tortured to protect her family members’ illegal activity."
Together the counts portray a husband-and-wife operation that mixed political score-settling with the defense of drug profits.
These torture allegations arrive after the Trump administration raided Maduro’s home, took him into custody, and brought him to the United States. Earlier charges accused him of narco-terrorism and cocaine trafficking. Maduro and Flores pleaded not guilty to those counts.
The new paper keeps the drug case in view while adding the torture theory. Prosecutors link the two themes: individuals were allegedly targeted because they looked disloyal or endangered the narcotics enterprise. Americans are listed among the people said to have been marked for physical and psychological abuse.
No statute numbers, court district, or named American victims appear in the public summary. Custody status and the next hearing date also remain unstated in the available account. What is clear is the administration’s decision to put the alleged torture system on the same docket as the drug counts already pending.
Electric shocks, beatings, asphyxiation, forced-confession videos, and threats against a child are now concrete allegations in a U.S. charging document. So is the claim that presidential power after 2013 was used to formalize arbitrary detention and violence against political opponents.
Dictators who treat torture as a governing tool and pair it with drug trafficking eventually face a simple test: whether any court will read the charges aloud. This one just did.
