Ex-Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro returns to federal court to face torture allegations

NEW YORK (AP) — Former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife, shackled at the ankles, returned Thursday to a New York courtroom to face a rewritten indictment accusing them of leading a state-sponsored campaign of repression that tortured scores of victims, including three Americans.

Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, were brought into the Manhattan federal court room shortly before they were expected to enter a plea to charges added to a drug trafficking indictment brought months earlier against the two. They were seized from their Caracas home by the U.S. military in a nighttime raid in January.

Attorney Barry Pollack said when the charges were announced last week that Maduro, 63, denies them and “looks forward to his day in court.”

According to the rewritten indictment, Maduro oversaw a violent torture system that beat, asphyxiated, and delivered electric shocks to its victims. He is accused of personally recommending torture methods, receiving updates on specific victims’ treatment, and threatening to kill one prisoner’s child as a form of psychological torture.

Flores, 70, a former attorney general, helped develop the repressive system and ordered the torture of some specific people, the indictment alleges.

Maduro, who served as Venezuela’s president from 2013 until his capture in January, has been under investigation for years by the International Criminal Court over allegations of crimes against humanity, tied to his crackdown on opponents. He has always denied wrongdoing.

Prior to Thursday's hearing, prosecutors posted a letter in the court docket saying that lawyers on both sides plan to ask that the trial date be moved from June 1 to June 14.

Torture is a crime under international law and can be prosecuted outside of the nation where the abuse occurred and regardless of the victims' nationality. But the prosecution of foreign officials in the U.S. is exceedingly rare, having been tried only a few times, including against the son of Liberian President Charles Taylor, Russians responsible for war crimes in Ukraine and a former prison warden in Bashar Assad’s Syria.

Earlier this year, Maduro and his wife pleaded not guilty in the U.S. drug case, which said they conspired to flood the U.S. with cocaine. Their attorneys say the case should be dismissed on immunity grounds because they were the leader and first lady of a foreign country.

The revised indictment covers allegations of torture stretching back to Maduro’s ascent to power in 2013, when he took over as president from his mentor Hugo Chávez, who died of cancer that year.

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Associated Press Writer Joshua Goodman in Miami contributed to this report.