Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro is accused of running a torture-filled prison and using American detainees as bargaining chips in negotiations with the United States in a new lawsuit. Two men from the U.S., who were imprisoned in Venezuela, are suing Maduro, saying his security officials put them through a pattern of torture including waterboarding, electrocution, threats of rape, mind-altering medication and locking them in a small cell.
“The kidnapping, torture and ransoming of American citizens was part of a continuous and systematic scheme to coerce the United States government into policy concessions, the end of an oil embargo, and prisoner swaps,” lawyers for the plaintiffs wrote in the lawsuit.
One of the plaintiffs, Matthew Heath, a former U.S. Marine corporal and U.S. security consultant in Afghanistan, was arrested and charged by Venezuelan authorities at a roadblock in Venezuela in 2020. They allegedly found weapons and a satellite phone on him.
Maduro accused him of being an oil refinery spy for then-President Donald Trump.
Osman Khan, the other plaintiff, was working in Colombia after graduating from college in the United States when he met his Venezuelan girlfriend, who invited him to meet her family.
Authorities detained Khan in 2022 while they were crossing the border and he was charged with terrorism and human trafficking.
The U.S. government found both men were wrongfully detained on false charges and they were each released in a prisoner swap after hundreds of days in jail.
Venezuela’s government has not commented on the lawsuit but has previously denied it targets Americans for imprisonment.
