"Abused American citizens in Venezuela": New indictment against Nicolás Maduro

The federal prosecution in New York is expected to file new charges against former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores for the torture of over a dozen American citizens held in the country. The charges are based on testimonies from released detainees who described waterboarding, electric shocks, and threats.

The federal prosecution in New York is expected to file new criminal charges against former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores, as reported by CNN. The new charges focus on the use of torture and illegal detention of over a dozen American citizens held in the country in recent years. The charges are based on testimonies from released American detainees, including former Marine Matthew Heath and Usman Khan, who were released in a prisoner exchange in 2022, and described waterboarding, electric shocks, threats of sexual assault, forced use of mind-altering drugs, and prolonged isolation. Similar testimonies were given by members of the "CITGO 6" group—senior executives of an American oil company who were lured to Caracas in 2017 and held for about five years. The detainees were held at the detention facility of the General Directorate of Military Counterintelligence (DGCIM). A UN report previously determined that this organization systematically operated to extract confessions and instill terror through deprivation of food and water, strangulation, beatings, and exposure to extreme temperatures. Maduro and Flores were captured last January during a US military raid at the presidential palace in Caracas and have since been held in New York. They already face serious charges of conspiracy to commit narco-terrorism and drug trafficking.