Flores to seek home detention at Thursday bail hearing
The revised indictment unsealed Thursday accuses Maduro of orchestrating a torture scheme as part of efforts to maintain power in Venezuela, according to The Wall Street Journal. Prosecutors said the alleged torture targeted U.S. detainees and included electric shocks, starvation, and threats to harm or kill victims’ family members.
The torture count adds to a narco-terrorism case that prosecutors first brought in early January. In that prior indictment, prosecutors accused Maduro, Flores and several co-defendants of partnering with violent drug traffickers and narcoterrorists to distribute tons of cocaine into the United States. Both defendants have denied those earlier charges and the new torture allegations.
Maduro, 63, and Flores, 69, were seized by U.S. Special Forces from their home in Caracas during a military operation earlier this year, the Journal reported. They have since been held at a federal jail in Brooklyn, and their trial on the combined charges is scheduled for June.
At a court appearance earlier this year, Maduro said he was innocent and still president of Venezuela, according to the Journal. In the wake of his removal, his former deputy Delcy Rodríguez has served as Venezuela’s interim leader with backing from the Trump administration.
Flores was scheduled to appear Thursday in Manhattan federal court for a bail hearing. Her lawyers have argued that she should be freed from jail because of concerns about her heart, and have proposed that she instead be held under home detention with 24-hour armed surveillance. They said she would not attempt to flee because her husband is being held in New York, and that she “is intent on supporting her husband with her constant presence.” Prosecutors have asked that she remain jailed, arguing she is a flight risk with no ties to the United States.
The torture allegations against Maduro are not new. A 2020 United Nations report found that Maduro and some of his top lieutenants ordered extrajudicial executions, jailed political rivals and tortured protesters. Separately, a federal judge earlier this year ordered that $314 million be awarded to U.S. detainees who had sued Maduro and other defendants over alleged torture.