Former Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and his wife returned to a New York court on Thursday to face a rewritten indictment accusing them of leading a state-sponsored campaign of repression that tortured dozens of victims, including three Americans.
Maduro and his wife, Celia Flores, are expected to plead not guilty in Manhattan federal court to charges added to a drug-trafficking indictment filed against the pair months ago. They were captured by U.S. forces from their home in Caracas during a nighttime raid in January.
Lawyer Barry Pollack said Maduro, 63, denied the charges when they were announced last week and “looked forward to his day in court.”
According to the rewritten indictment, Maduro oversaw a violent torture system in which victims were beaten, suffocated and electrocuted. He is accused of personally recommending torture methods, receiving updates on the treatment of specific victims and threatening to kill an inmate’s children as a form of psychological torture.
The indictment alleges that Flores, 69, a former attorney general, helped create a system of repression and ordered the torture of select individuals.
Maduro, Venezuela’s president from 2013 until his arrest in January, has been under investigation by the International Criminal Court for years over accusations of crimes against humanity related to a crackdown on opposition. He has always denied wrongdoing.
Earlier this year, Maduro and his wife pleaded not guilty in a U.S. drug case that alleged they conspired to ship large quantities of cocaine into the United States. Their lawyers said the case should be dismissed on grounds of immunity because they are leaders and first ladies of a foreign country.
The revised indictment covers torture allegations dating back to Maduro’s rise to power in 2013, when he took over from mentor Hugo Chávez, who died of cancer that year.