The USA expands charges against Maduro and accuses him of torture

Washington/BarcelonaThe United States charged the deposed Venezuelan president, Nicolás Maduro, this Thursday with torture and repression. Thus, the American justice system is expanding the charges against the former Venezuelan leader, who remains imprisoned in New York accused of "narcoterrorism". The investigation into Maduro's alleged link to drug trafficking was the pretext that Washington used to escalate pressure against Venezuela and capture its top leader.

Now, the United States is also accusing the deposed Venezuelan president and his inner circle of "creating and maintaining a violent system of repression" in the country since 1999. With this system, according to the American version, Maduro and his circle allegedly tortured opponents and dissidents. Until now, Washington's accusations against the Chavista leader did not include cases of human rights violations documented by the UN. Before the military intervention, they focused on proving that Maduro led the Cartel of the Suns—the existence of which has never been proven—, but references to this alleged organization were removed from the accusation against the Venezuelan president once he was deposed and imprisoned.

The former Venezuelan leader and his wife, Cília Flores, who is also accused and imprisoned for drug trafficking and terrorism in New York, have always denied the crimes of which they are accused. For the moment, there has been no statement regarding the new charges of which they are accused.

The document, presented by prosecutor James M. McDonald, states that Maduro and Flores made use of "military units" known as "colectivos", the support of groups linked to drug trafficking and guerrilla terrorism in the style of the FARC, and the state intelligence agency to "detain and torture their victims". "Nicolás Maduro Moros presided over this system of repression and torture, commanded the units and officers, both from law enforcement and the military, responsible for perpetrating torture, ordered the illegal detention and torture of specific individuals, and received reports on the torture of specific prisoners. Cilia contributed to developing this system of repression and ordered the torture of people to protect the illicit activities of her family members," the indictment says.

The expansion of the charges comes at a time when Maduro and Flores' lawyer, Barry Pollack, has focused the defense strategy on the illegality of the US military intervention in Venezuela to depose its leader. With this approach, Pollack aims to defuse the case without even having to debate the rest of the accusations leveled against the couple.

However, including accusations of torture and human rights violations could be a way for the American prosecution to try to justify its intervention in the country. That said, the weight this new indictment might carry remains to be seen: the US has never ratified the Rome Statute, and the International Criminal Court, despite having an open investigation against Maduro, never issued an arrest warrant. Recently, Caracas withdrew from the Statute, and within a year, the ICC's jurisdiction will cease to have effect.

A similarity that could be found is with the detention of the Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet, which served as a precedent for universal and international law. In that case, it was not the ICC that intervened directly, but the governments of Great Britain, Spain, and Chile. Pinochet was arrested in Great Britain because just at that moment Spain issued an arrest warrant for the accusations of torture committed during the dictatorship. This was possible thanks to the fact that all the countries involved had ratified the Convention against Torture - which Spain fully signed in democracy - and the fact that the Spanish legislation of that time recognized broad universal jurisdiction that empowered judges to prosecute these crimes outside its territory.

Despite the Pinochet precedent, there remains a major nuance: the Chilean dictator was in London at that time. Maduro, on the other hand, remained within his own territory.