FBI Adds Torture Charges Against Maduro as US Faces Questions Over Its Abuses

FBI Director Kash Patel announced additional charges against ousted Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores, alleging that both have committed crimes relating to torture.

Patel announced the new charges in a post on X on Thursday. The two were already indicted on separate charges relating to drug trafficking and firearms shortly after the U.S. invasion of Venezuela that resulted in their capture earlier this year.

Both Maduro and Flores are now facing an additional count of Conspiracy to Commit Torture, Patel said. Flores is also charged with one more count of narcoterrorism.

“They will now answer for their crimes,” Patel promised.

The 30-page indictment alleges that Maduro and Flores tortured opposition party members and dissenters to his presidency from around 1999 through 2025, including some U.S. citizens. The couple have not yet entered a plea on the new charges, but pleaded “not guilty” to the original ones.

“President Maduro ⁠denies the charges in the new indictment and looks forward to his day in court,” Barry Pollack, Maduro’s lawyer, said in a statement.

Aspects of the charges against Maduro and Flores may prove difficult for the Department of Justice (DOJ) to prosecute. The “narcoterrorism” statute has rarely been used at trial, and has only resulted in four trial convictions since it was enacted in 2006. Even then, two of those four convictions were later overturned due to concerns about witness statements.

Much of the evidence against Maduro relies on witness statements from less-than-reputable sources, The Washington Sun reported after his capture.

The January invasion resulted in over 100 people killed, including civilians, with at least one United Nations expert decrying it as a likely violation of international law and the sovereignty of Venezuela. After Maduro’s removal, the U.S. began seizing Venezuela’s oil reserves, and this past summer, a “deal” between the countries was brokered, which includes the U.S. taking control of 65 billion barrels of Venezuela’s oil reserves, and 100-year leases to 17 oil fields.

Trump reportedly sought advice on his decision to invade Venezuela and capture Maduro, in part, from the AI chatbot Grok.

The charges against Maduro come as the Trump administration has also been accused of employing torture techniques.

For example, as part of the administration’s mass deportation campaign, the White House is sending refugees and other immigrants to countries known for torturing incarcerated people, including to El Salvador, where immigrants have been incarcerated at the notorious CECOT prison, which critics contend is in violation of U.S. and international law.

Within the U.S., the administration has tortured immigrants in detention facilities across the country, such as at the now-closed “Alligator Alcatraz,” where incarcerated people were subjected to a device known as “the box” — a 2×2 foot cage-like structure that was used to punish people.

The U.S. has also sent immigrants (some of whom were legally permitted to live in the country) to Guantánamo Bay Naval Base in Cuba, where individuals have been subjected to horrendous, unsanitary conditions and kept in isolated confinement for up to 23 hours per day.