US prosecutors add a torture conspiracy count against Maduro and Cilia Flores

Federal prosecutors in Manhattan unsealed a superseding indictment on 8 October charging former Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro Moros and his wife, Cilia Adela Flores de Maduro, with conspiring to commit torture, including the torture of United States citizens. The new count sits on top of the narcoterrorism, cocaine-importation and weapons charges already filed after the couple was seized in January and flown to the United States.

Maduro is 63. Flores is 69. The case is in the Southern District of New York. Attorney General Todd Blanche, US Attorney Jamie McDonald, DEA Administrator Terrance C. Cole, Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin and FBI Director Kash Patel announced the charges. The prosecution team listed in the DEA release is Assistant US Attorneys Kaylan E. Lasky, Henry L. Ross, Kevin T. Sullivan and Kyle A. Wirshba, with Trial Attorney Kevin Nunnally.

Count Two, conspiracy to commit torture, carries a maximum of 20 years. It does not carry a mandatory minimum. The other counts are heavier on paper. Count One, narcoterrorism conspiracy, carries a 20-year mandatory minimum and a maximum of life. Count Three, conspiracy to import cocaine, carries a 10-year minimum and a maximum of life. Count Four, using and carrying machine guns and destructive devices during the drug conspiracies, carries a 30-year minimum and a maximum of life. Count Five, a conspiracy to do the same, carries a maximum of life. The Justice Department noted that these ranges are set by Congress and that any sentence will be fixed by the judge.

The indictment alleges a torture conspiracy running for more than two decades, from at least 1999. The methods listed in the charging papers and in the Courthouse News account of the bail hearing include electric shock, asphyxiation, rape, forced nudity, prolonged isolation, starvation, punishment cells and threats to kill relatives, including children. Prosecutors say the work was done by Venezuelan military units, state-backed colectivos and groups the United States has designated as foreign terrorist organisations or cartels, among them the FARC, the ELN, the Sinaloa Cartel, the Zetas and their successor the Cartel del Noreste, and Tren de Aragua.

Three unnamed co-conspirators are described by code. CC-1 is alleged to have ordered murders of opponents, overseen torture by subordinates and personally threatened to kill a prisoner's child. CC-2 is described as a senior officer reporting directly to Maduro, who developed methods presented for Maduro's approval, led an agency said to have tortured scores of people, and signed off on unlawful arrests. CC-3 is alleged to have ordered and joined in the torture of civilians and military members, including US citizens, thought to threaten Maduro's rule.

One alleged case is set out in detail. Prosecutors say a US citizen held in Venezuela was denied food and water, subjected to simulated drowning and repeated beatings, shocked on the genitals with electricity, and injected with a substance that caused seizures. A separate allegation, reported by Courthouse News from the hearing, describes officers punching a detainee, covering his face, pouring a noxious liquid over him until he vomited, and forcing him to eat the vomit. These are allegations. The DEA release states that the charges are accusations and that the defendants are presumed innocent unless proved guilty.

The timing is procedural as well as political. The superseding indictment was unsealed minutes before a bail hearing on Thursday in the existing narco-terrorism case. Courthouse News reported that Flores was denied bail. Maduro and Flores were captured by the US military in January after the original drug and gun charges. Patel described that transfer as one of the most complex foreign custody moves the FBI has supported, and said Thursday's charges follow from it.

What the new count changes is the theory of the case the jury will hear. The drug counts describe a trafficking enterprise. The torture count describes the use of custody, including of American citizens, as a tool of political control. A conviction on Count Two alone would cap the sentence at 20 years. A conviction on Count One or Count Four would not. The open question for the court is whether the government can tie the coded officers, and the specific abuse of named or unnamed US citizens, to Maduro and Flores personally, rather than to a security service acting on its own.