The U.S. federal court in Manhattan has accused deposed Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro of abusing the human rights of detainees comprising his critics and opponents, including U.S. citizens, by starving and torturing them with electric shocks. 

Prosecutors filed a fresh charge of conspiracy to commit torture against the captured president.

President Donald Trump’s administration captured Mr Maduro, 63, and his wife, Cilia Flores, 69, in January over accusations of cocaine trafficking and has continued to hold them in a Brooklyn jail pending the outcome of their trial scheduled to begin in June 2027.

The administration claimed the couple partnered with narcoterrorists to flood the U.S. with cocaine.

In the updated indictment unsealed to the public on Thursday, prosecutors argued that Mr Maduro violated the human rights of critics and opponents of his presidency, who they said were captured and tortured using electric shocks while threatening their children.

“‘Do not let them sleep,’ or ‘pour water on them,” were some of the instructions Mr Maduro gave officers detailing the prisoners, according to The Wall Street Journal. 

U.S. District Judge Alvin Hellerstein, who denied Ms Flores’ application for bail, said the couple will be arraigned on the new charges.

Ms Flores’ lawyers prayed the judge to allow her to remain in home detention under 24-hour surveillance while awaiting trial. But prosecutors countered that she was a flight risk without any American ties.

But Mr Hellerstein said he took Ms Flores’s promises not to flee America if released with “many grains of salt.”