Blog de Valentina Oropeza
“Thousands of Venezuelans”
Three courts are examining the repression in Venezuela. Today, in one of them, Nicolás Maduro and Cilia Flores pleaded not guilty to conspiracy to commit torture.
In March, I stood in line outside that New York courtroom with Venezuelans who told me they had been tortured in detention. The case then was about narco-terrorism, drug trafficking and weapons. Now it is also about torture.
“I reject this document entirely,” Maduro told Judge Alvin Hellerstein in Spanish, through an interpreter. The judge cut him off and entered a not guilty plea on his behalf.
“I am completely innocent. I am not guilty,” Flores said.
The indictment describes torture methods such as “electric shock, asphyxiation, rape, forced nudity, prolonged isolation, starvation, punishment cells, and psychological torture.”
“Between in or about 1999 and in or about 2025, thousands of Venezuelans were harassed, threatened, arrested, prosecuted, assaulted, tortured, or killed by individuals wielding the purported authority of the Venezuelan state to ensure that MADURO MOROS and FLORES DE MADURO remained in power,” the indictment states.
The other two courts are investigating alleged crimes against humanity.
The International Criminal Court has been investigating alleged imprisonment, torture, rape and other forms of sexual violence, and persecution in Venezuela since 2021. That investigation faces two pressures: Venezuela notified its withdrawal from the Rome Statute in July, which takes effect in 2027 but does not halt the ongoing investigation; and the deputy prosecutor leading it, Mame Mandiaye Niang, has been sanctioned by the US government.
In Argentina, a universal jurisdiction case led to arrest orders for Maduro and Venezuela’s Interior Minister, Diosdado Cabello. In February, a federal judge asked Washington to extradite Maduro. There has been no public response.
Three courts, three speeds. Only two of them are investigating the repression in Venezuela as crimes against humanity.
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