Venezuela’s deposed president Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, appeared in court in New York on Thursday to plead not guilty to new charges of conspiracy to commit torture, BBC News reported.
“I reject this document entirely,” Maduro said in Spanish through a translator, according to BBC News. He told the court he denied the “false accusations and false testimony against me.”
The Guardian reported that Maduro, who spoke through an interpreter and was shackled at the ankles, twice responded to the request for a plea by criticising the indictment, after which Judge Alvin Hellerstein entered a not-guilty plea for him.
“I am completely innocent. I am not guilty,” Flores said through a translator, BBC News reported. Both wore beige jail uniforms and appeared to have lost weight in detention in Brooklyn, according to BBC News.
How the Case Reached New York
The couple were captured in January in a US military raid and taken to New York, where they remain in jail, according to BBC News. The Guardian reported that they were seized from their Caracas home in a night-time raid.
Maduro, 63, took over in 2013 from his mentor Hugo Chávez, who died of cancer that year, and served as president until his capture, The Guardian reported. He has been under investigation by the International Criminal Court over alleged crimes against humanity, and has always denied wrongdoing.
The US first accused Maduro of narco-terrorism, drug trafficking and weapons offences, BBC News reported. Prosecutors accused him, his wife, his son and accomplices of a cocaine-trafficking conspiracy and of partnering with cartels designated as terrorist groups. Maduro previously called such charges a tool of “imperial” plans to reach Venezuela’s oil. Earlier this year the couple pleaded not guilty in that drug case, according to The Guardian.
The new charges against both of them were added last week, BBC News reported. When they were announced, attorney Barry Pollack said Maduro denied them and “looks forward to his day in court”, The Guardian reported.
What the Indictment Alleges
The indictment alleges the couple “created and maintained a violent system of repression” that saw “thousands of Venezuelans” killed, harassed and tortured, according to BBC News. It alleges US citizens were tortured under that system. The Guardian says three Americans.
BBC News reported that the US alleges Maduro authorised torture “against specific individuals”, and that the indictment lists alleged methods including electric shock, asphyxiation and prolonged isolation.
According to The Guardian, the revised indictment covers allegations stretching back to Maduro’s rise to power in 2013. It accuses him of personally recommending torture methods and receiving updates on specific victims’ treatment, and of threatening to kill one prisoner’s child as a form of psychological torture. It alleges the system tortured scores of victims.
Flores, 70, a former attorney general, is alleged to have helped develop the system and to have ordered the torture of some specific people, The Guardian reported.
The Immunity Argument
Their lawyers argue that Maduro is the leader of a sovereign country and immune from prosecution, and that taking him by force was illegal, BBC News reported. In the drug case, their attorneys say the charges should be dismissed on immunity grounds because they were the leader and first lady of a foreign country, according to The Guardian.
Flores unsuccessfully sought release on bond, citing heart problems and other health issues in detention at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, BBC News reported.
Torture is a crime under international law and can be prosecuted outside the country where it happened, The Guardian reported, but US prosecutions of foreign officials are “exceedingly rare”. Earlier cases include the son of former Liberian president Charles Taylor, Russians responsible for war crimes in Ukraine and a former prison warden in Bashar Assad’s Syria.
The Road to a 2027 Trial
The trial is scheduled for June 2027, according to BBC News. The Guardian reported that prosecutors told the judge both sides want it moved from 1 June to 14 June.
Maduro and Flores deny the charges. Buzzline’s coverage of other trials is in the Crime & Courts section.
Sources: BBC News, “Maduro pleads not guilty to additional charges in New York”, 15 October 2026 (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cqwyrn1l74zro); The Guardian, “Nicolás Maduro tells New York court new torture allegations are ‘false’”, 15 October 2026 (https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/oct/15/nicolas-maduro-torture-allegations-cilia-flores)
Guillermo Ramos Flamerich, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
Miraflores Palace, the presidential palace in Caracas, in September 2010. An archive view with no link to Thursday’s hearing.
