Venezuela's ex-leader Nicolás Maduro charged with conspiracy to commit torture

Prosecutors in the United States have accused Venezuela's former leader Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, of conspiracy to commit torture.

The fresh charges against the couple were made public on Thursday and are in addition to the drug-trafficking and weapons charges already brought against them, which they have denied.

Maduro, 63, and Flores, 69, have been in custody since January in a detention centre in Brooklyn, where they were taken after US forces seized them in a pre-dawn raid on their compound in the Venezuelan capital, Caracas.

Human rights groups in Venezuela and former prisoners have long denounced what they have described as "systematic torture" in Venezuelan jails.

The new accusations relate to the alleged torture of US citizens who were being held in Venezuela while Maduro was in power.

The trial for both Maduro and Flores is set to begin in June 2027.