Nicolás Maduro, the deposed ruler of Venezuela awaiting trial in the United States, is spending his days behind bars reading religious texts and meeting with clergy, including a rabbi, The New York Times reported Sunday, citing people familiar with his routine.
Maduro, 63, has been held at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn since U.S. forces captured him and his wife, Cilia Flores, in Caracas on January 3. According to the report, his interest in faith has deepened since his arrest. He spends long hours reading the Bible, the Quran and philosophical works, and meets with prison chaplains, among them a Catholic priest and a rabbi.
Claimed Jewish roots
Maduro’s connection to Judaism didn’t begin in prison. In May 2013, shortly after he was elected president, he said his grandparents were Jews of Sephardic descent who later converted to Catholicism. He made the remarks while rejecting accusations that his government was antisemitic. According to the Times, his family traces its roots to a Jewish community that came to Venezuela from the Dutch Antilles.
Still, people who knew him well say he showed no particular interest in Judaism before his arrest.
His relationship with religion has long been complicated. Raised Catholic, he has described himself as a believer, grew close to a priest who shared his socialist views, and courted Venezuela’s evangelical Christians. At the same time, he and Flores were devotees of the Indian guru Sathya Sai Baba, who died in 2011.
Faith also came up at his first appearance in a U.S. courtroom in January. As he was led out, after a man in the gallery shouted that he would pay for what he had done to Venezuela, Maduro replied: “In the name of God, I will be free.”
