Maduro And His Wife Face Torture Charges. More Than A Dozen Americans Are At The Center of The Accusation.

Venezuela's former authoritarian President Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, are facing new criminal charges over the alleged torture of Americans held in Venezuelan government custody, expanding a federal prosecution that already includes drug trafficking and firearms allegations.

Federal prosecutors in New York announced the charges on Thursday. CNN had anticipated the move, citing multiple people familiar with the investigation.

The charges relate to more than a dozen U.S. citizens who were detained in Venezuelan prisons while Maduro was in power.

Maduro and Flores were captured in Caracas during a U.S. military operation on Jan. 3 and brought to New York to face an existing federal prosecution.

Maduro faces charges including narcoterrorism conspiracy, cocaine importation conspiracy and firearms offenses. Flores also faces cocaine importation and firearms-related charges. Both have pleaded not guilty.

Maduro's lawyers have challenged the legality of his capture and argued that he should have immunity for alleged conduct carried out while he was Venezuela's president. Prosecutors have opposed that position.

Flores is expected to appear in federal court Thursday, where her lawyers are seeking to have her released from custody and placed under house arrest while she awaits trial.

The expected new charges center on Americans who say they were tortured or subjected to abusive conditions while detained in Venezuela.

Matthew Heath, a former U.S. Marine, and Osman Khan were among Americans freed in a 2022 prisoner exchange. In litigation following their release, the men alleged they were subjected to waterboarding, electric shocks, threats of sexual assault, mind-altering drugs and extended periods of solitary confinement.

Six executives connected to U.S.-based oil refiner Citgo, commonly known as the "Citgo 6," were also detained in Venezuela after traveling to Caracas in 2017. Several later alleged that they were tortured or held in abusive conditions during nearly five years in detention.

Many allegations of abuse in Venezuela have centered on facilities operated by the General Directorate of Military Counterintelligence, known as DGCIM.

A United Nations Fact-Finding Mission documented repeated allegations of torture by DGCIM officers, including abuse during interrogations shortly after detainees were arrested and before their first court appearances.

The mission examined 77 cases in which military personnel and associates alleged they had been tortured by DGCIM and documented patterns of abuse including electric shocks, beatings, suffocation, sexual violence, stress positions, food and water deprivation and prolonged isolation.

U.N. investigators said the alleged abuse was often used to extract confessions or information, punish detainees or obtain information about other people accused of involvement in plots against the government.

The U.N. mission also documented the use of unofficial or clandestine detention facilities by DGCIM and said it had identified 24 cases of torture at such locations between 2018 and 2019.

The U.S. government has for years classified some Americans held in Venezuela as wrongfully detained, and several were eventually released through prisoner exchanges or negotiations with Caracas.

The precise charges prosecutors are preparing against Maduro and Flores have not yet been publicly disclosed. Investigators have also discussed whether additional people could be charged over their alleged role in the treatment of American detainees.