Judge cuts off Maduro mid-rant as he and wife plead not guilty to torture charges in New York court

Nicolás Maduro, 63, refused to enter a direct plea and condemned the new US torture charges as "false testimony against me" before a Manhattan judge silenced him mid-speech. The revised indictment charges Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores, 70, with ordering officials to asphyxiate and electrocute political opponents and military personnel as a means of suppressing dissent. According to prosecutors, Maduro instructed interrogators to "squeeze them harder" when detainees would not cooperate. The couple, seized in a US military raid in January on President Trump's orders, now face a mandatory minimum of 50 years each if convicted on all counts at their trial, set for June 2027.

Flores allegedly endorsed the torture scheme in person and rejected a proposed alternative of embedding operatives within dissident groups to collect intelligence.

The revised indictment substantially broadens an earlier case that had already charged the pair with misusing their authority to assist drug traffickers in moving cocaine into the US.

Neither Maduro nor Flores is accused of personally carrying out acts of torture — prosecutors say they directed others to do it.