NEW YORK — The families of five young men murdered in Venezuela filed a civil lawsuit in a United States court against deposed dictator Nicolás Maduro, whom they accuse of ordering extrajudicial executions as part of a systematic pattern of state violence.
The 44-page lawsuit maintains that Maduro ordered officials from the Special Action Forces (FAES) of the National Police to execute the five young people between 2017 and 2020. According to the document, the victims are part of thousands of people who would have been murdered by security forces during his administration.
Accusations against the FAES
The complaint indicates that the FAES, dissolved in 2021 after complaints of human rights violations made by different international organizations, acted under a policy of repression directed against sectors of the population.
According to the lawsuit, the agents entered the sectors where the victims lived at dawn, dressed in black and with their faces covered. Subsequently, they separated the young people from their relatives, shot them and, according to the accusation, produced official versions in which they stated that the victims had “resisted authority.”
Judicial process in the United States
Maduro remains detained in a New York jail awaiting trial on federal charges related to drug trafficking, after being captured during a US military operation in Venezuela in January.
The civil action was filed in federal court in Brooklyn under the United States Torture Victims Protection Act. The plaintiffs maintain that the Venezuelan judicial system prevented the clarification of the facts and seek financial compensation for the damages suffered.
The families of the victims, whose identity remains confidential for security reasons, claim that the murders responded to a pattern of extrajudicial executions attributed to the FAES during the Maduro administration.
