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Celia Flores, the wife of former Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, is seeking to leave the prison where she is being held in New York and move to house arrest due to heart health problems. She is scheduled to appear in court again, today, Thursday, at a time when the couple faces criminal charges that could carry a penalty of up to life imprisonment, amid reports that American prosecutors are preparing to file new charges related to allegations of torture of American citizens in Venezuela.

Flores's lawyers are expected to ask the judge to release her from prison and place her under house arrest, based on her health condition and her suffering from heart problems, according to the German News Agency.

Maduro and his wife have been detained in a New York prison since early January, after they were arrested at their home in the Venezuelan capital, Caracas, during a raid carried out in the middle of the night.

The couple pleaded not guilty to the charges against them in a criminal case that included them and a number of people accused of conspiring with them, which was first filed six years ago.

Maduro and Flores face the possibility of life imprisonment if convicted of participating in a conspiracy to smuggle cocaine into the United States.

On the other hand, their lawyers demanded that the case be dropped, based on their immunity given that Maduro is the head of a foreign country and Flores is the first lady.

Possible new accusations of torturing Americans

In conjunction with the judicial proceedings related to Flores's request for house arrest, New York prosecutors are expected to bring new charges against Maduro and his wife, against the backdrop of allegations of torture of American citizens detained by the Venezuelan government in recent years.

CNN quoted several people familiar with the investigation as saying that this step may be announced soon, perhaps as soon as Thursday.

The potential charges relate to what the US government describes as the arbitrary detention of more than a dozen American citizens in Venezuelan prisons during Maduro's rule, which, according to this account, was characterized by repression.

According to sources familiar with the investigation, the case is not limited to Maduro and his wife; Investigators also discussed the possibility of bringing charges against other people for their alleged roles in torturing American citizens.

Allegations of torture inside Venezuelan prisons

The Maduro government detained more than a dozen American citizens, while the US government and human rights activists accused it of using these detainees as political bargaining chips.

A number of Americans who were previously detained in Venezuela spoke publicly about, according to their accounts, being subjected to torture methods and harsh treatment during their periods of imprisonment.

In a lawsuit, Matthew Heath and Usman Khan, who were released as part of a prisoner exchange deal in October 2022, said that they were subjected to multiple torture methods, including waterboarding, a method that simulates execution by drowning, electrocution, and the threat of sexual assault.

The allegations also included forcing them to take drugs that affect their cognition, in addition to subjecting them to periods of solitary confinement.

According to the lawsuit, Heath, a former US Marine, attempted suicide during his detention.

These allegations were not limited to Heath and Khan; Members of the CITGO 6 group, which includes six American oil executives, spoke of the harsh conditions they suffered during their detention in Venezuela.

The six officials were lured to Venezuela in 2017, before being detained there for nearly five years.

In their lawsuits, three members of the group, Tomeu Fadel, Alirio José Zambrano and José Luis Zambrano, stated that they were tortured during their imprisonment.

All of these Americans were detained at the headquarters of the Directorate General for Military Counterintelligence (DGCIM), an entity whose name has been linked to serious accusations of human rights violations.

According to a report issued by the United Nations, the directorate was described as “responsible for the arbitrary detention, ill-treatment, and torture of political opponents and their families.”

While US President Donald Trump was seeking, on Wednesday, to mobilize voters in Texas to support Senate candidate Ken Paxton, who is facing difficulties, a series of protests disrupted his campaign rally in San Antonio.

Protesters repeatedly interrupted the president's speech, including one demonstrator who appeared to be close to the podium. Trump briefly stepped away from the microphone.

Trump said: “He will return home to his mother, but he does not know that his mother voted for Trump.”

Other demonstrators appeared successively, until the number of boycotts reached at least six times. The police took some protesters away from the site.

Trump initially tried to continue his speech despite the interruptions, while the crowd booed, but as the protests continued, he said: “These are really bad-looking people.”

The protests highlighted the difficulties facing the Republican Party in Texas during the midterm elections scheduled for next month.

Texas is the nation's most populous state and the Republican Party is reliably dominant, with Trump winning it in 2024 by nearly 14 percentage points. But with less than a month until Election Day, Trump's low approval ratings, the war in Iran, and a sharp rise in gas prices threaten Republicans in almost all states.

This is Trump's third visit to Texas in less than a month, at a time when the Republican Party is trying to confront a Democratic electoral wave in a state that was not thought to be competitive this year.