Nicolás Maduro and wife charged with torture for human rights abuses in Venezuela

Former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro was charged by U.S. authorities with conspiring to torture his fellow citizens in an effort to maintain his hold on power. The abducted authoritarian leader was already facing drug trafficking offenses in the United States. Maduro, who was previously charged with participating in a conspiracy to send cocaine into the U.S., is now also facing allegations of human rights abuses during his reign as president of the oil-rich South American nation, according to the new indictment, which was unsealed on Thursday. “He authorized the use of torture against specific individuals and oversaw a system designed to use torture, arbitrary detention and violence as a means of repression against the political opposition,” says the revised indictment, which newly charges Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, with torture conspiracy.The couple was able to stay in power by “terrorizing perceived opponents through persecution and violence,” according to the revised indictment. Thousands of Venezuelans were “harassed, threatened, arrested, prosecuted, assaulted, tortured, or killed” by people acting at the behest of the government he controlled.The allegations include electric shocks, beatings and asphyxiation at Maduro's behest. The indictment accuses the ex-president of signing off on methods of torture and personally threatening the killing of one prisoner’s child “as a form of psychological torture.”Both Maduro and Flores have been behind bars in New York since early January, when forces seized them from their Caracas home in a middle-of-the-night raid.Ousted Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro's wife, Cilia Flores, attends a hearing i (Reuters)Flores was scheduled to be in court Thursday, where her lawyers will urge a judge to free her from jail and put her under house arrest because she has heart problems.Lawyers for Flores, 69, have also argued that she has medical issues that cannot be treated effectively in jail, and that she could instead be allowed to live under 24-hour guard at a residence in New York.They also said she suffered permanent scarring when she was “thrown against a wall or dresser” during the U.S. military action that led to her capture.Her lawyers say she has lost 25 pounds (11 kilograms) while imprisoned at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn and has been told that she might need heart surgery. They said she has “lingering lightheadedness, dizziness and shortness of breath” and might have suffered a minor heart attack in July.