U.S. officials brought new torture charges against deposed Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, alleging that the pair employed torture and other abuse to secure subservience from the Venezuelan population.
Maduro, the ousted president who was removed from Venezuela by U.S. military forces in early January, was already charged with helping transport thousands of tons of cocaine into the United States as well as possessing machine guns. He and his wife, who faced similar charges, previously pleaded not guilty to those allegations.
The new charges, laid out in a fresh indictment made public Oct. 8, escalate a criminal case that already could have landed the couple in prison for decades, if convicted.
President Donald Trump,
who ordered the military operation that removed Maduro from his country, said at a Cabinet meeting on March 26 that Maduro "emptied his prisons into our country" and that the U.S. had charged him with "a fraction" of what it could have.
This is a developing story that will be updated.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Nicolás Maduro, wife face new charges of conspiring to torture
