Former Venezuelan dictator Nicolas Maduro and his wife each pleaded not guilty to new charges alleging they tortured U.S. citizens.
Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, appeared in a New York City federal courtroom on Thursday for an arraignment on new charges that the two were allegedly involved in conspiring to commit torture. The new charges joined Maduro and Flores’s initial charges of narcoterrorism for cocaine trafficking and machine-gun possession, created a superseding indictment for the two Venezuelans.
“I reject this document in its entirety,” Maduro told the court on Thursday.
The additional torture charge carries a sentence of up to 20 years in federal prison.
Maduro had previously pleaded not guilty to the other charges he is facing in January.
“I’m innocent. I’m not guilty. I am a decent man,” Maduro said at the time.
President Donald Trump ordered the capture of Maduro from Caracas in early January, with the U.S. military swooping into Venezuela to bring Maduro and Flores back to the United States to face the U.S. Department of Justice. The Pentagon’s overnight capture of Maduro, called Operation Absolute Resolve, only lasted for under three hours before they headed back to the U.S.
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The former dictator and his wife are being held in the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, New York, while Maduro’s former Vice President Delcy Rodriguez runs the South American country. Their case is under the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.
Maduro and Flores are set to face trial on June 14, 2027, with Clinton-appointed Judge Alvin Hellerstein setting a final pretrial conference for June 8.
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[ H/T Washington Examiner ]
