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Maduro torture charges: US accuses Venezuela’s ex-leader and wife of torturing detainees, including Americans

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Maduro torture charges were made public in New York on Thursday, 8 October 2026, as US prosecutors accused Venezuela’s former president Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, of conspiracy to commit torture, including of US citizens held in Venezuela during his rule, the BBC and Al Jazeera reported.

Maduro torture charges: what the indictment says

The superseding indictment, unsealed in Manhattan federal court, accuses the couple of “entrenching themselves in power” by presiding “over a system of repression that relied on violence against political opposition, arbitrary detention, and the torture of detainees, including United States citizens”, according to the BBC.

It lists methods including electric shock, asphyxiation, rape, prolonged isolation, starvation and threats against victims’ families. Prosecutors allege Flores played a key role, ordering that individuals be tortured and receiving updates on specific prisoners. The indictment says the aim of the repression was to keep the couple in power.

Al Jazeera said the charge adds one count of conspiracy to commit torture to the existing case, in which prosecutors accuse Maduro of working with cartel groups to move cocaine through Venezuela towards the United States.

Key facts

  • New count: conspiracy to commit torture
  • Adds to existing drug-trafficking and weapons charges, which the couple deny
  • Maduro, 63, and Flores, 69, held in Brooklyn since January
  • Trial due to begin in June 2027 (BBC)

The case so far

Maduro and Flores were taken into US custody in January after US forces seized them in a pre-dawn raid on their compound in Caracas. They have pleaded not guilty to the earlier charges and are held at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn.

Venezuelan human rights groups and former prisoners have long described “systematic torture” in the country’s jails. Rights group Foro Penal says more than 300 political prisoners remain behind bars, and UN rights chief Volker Türk said in March that reports of torture had continued even after Maduro’s removal.

Why it matters

The torture count moves the case beyond drugs and weapons to alleged human rights abuses against Americans, which could widen the evidence and witnesses at trial. It also keeps pressure on Venezuela’s interim government over prisoners still held.

Source: BBC, Al Jazeera

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