UN experts: Rights abuses continue in Maduro’s Venezuela

CARACAS, Venezuela — Independent experts working with the U.N.’s top human rights body say Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro personally ordered the detention of government opponents and critics who ended up suffering electric shocks, beatings, asphyxiation and other cruel acts while in custody.

The third report from the fact-finding mission on Venezuela, commissioned by the U.N.‘s Human Rights Council, was released Tuesday and adds new detail on a string of rights violations — including possible crimes against humanity — under Maduro’s government that the experts first documented two years ago.

The report and the mission’s leader said torture was ordered by Maduro in some cases but provided no details of specific instances. The three-person mission reached that conclusion primarily through interviews with former members of the South American country’s intelligence agencies.

“We base it on different but consistent testimonies that we receive from our sources of information, and so, we try to corroborate and verify this type of information,” Marta Valiñas, a Portuguese legal expert who chairs the mission, told The Associated Press. “But that’s what we received with regards to the involvement of higher political levels, including the president, in determining who should be monitored and detained and in some cases also receiving treatment that would then amount to acts of torture or other forms of ill treatment.”

The mission does not have judicial powers, but the evidence it has gathered could one day be used by the International Criminal Court or by any country that might apply “universal jurisdiction” to prosecute alleged crimes against humanity.

The government did not respond to a request for comment from The Associated Press. It has also failed to respond to more than 20 letters from the mission, which has not received permission to enter the country.

The report states Maduro and ruling party leader Diosdado Cabello have given orders “identifying targets for investigation,” including civilians and government critics. Those orders were followed by members of the Bolivarian National Intelligence Service, who arrested individuals after “a period of surveillance and investigation” and tortured or subjected them “to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.” Some were tortured for days or weeks.

The intelligence service “relied on a range of torture methods, including beatings, electric shocks,…