A former Venezuelan military commander who is accused of ordering torture and had adopted a new life as a television actor in South Florida has been deported, according to the U.S. immigration authorities, interrupting his accusers’ case in federal court.
The commander, Rafael José Quero Silva, a former lieutenant colonel in Venezuela’s National Guard, was deported this month, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement said in a statement on Wednesday.
Mr. Quero Silva once ran a notoriously repressive military unit in the city of Barquisimeto, Venezuela, including during a crackdown on antigovernment protests in 2013 and 2014. He later came to the United States and overstayed his visa, according to I.C.E. In 2018, Venezuelans living in the country discovered that he had a new life in the Miami suburbs as a television extra on the Spanish-language soap opera “My Perfect Family.”
I.C.E. detained Mr. Quero Silva in February 2025, and later that year, five people sued him in federal court, saying that soldiers had tortured, shot or beat them under Mr. Quero Silva’s command amid the government’s crackdown on protests.
This month’s deportation caused an abrupt change of course in the lawsuit. Almudena Bernabeu, an international human rights lawyer representing the plaintiffs, said they were disappointed that they would not have the opportunity for a full trial. But Ms. Bernabeu said her clients would still seek damages and an opportunity to put their experiences on the record.
“We will fight to make sure that there is justice, even if it is in absentia,” Ms. Bernabeu said. “It’s very important that their stories are heard.”
Mr. Quero Silva’s lawyer, Eduardo X. Pereira, did not respond to a request for comment Thursday afternoon.
If the civil suit, filed in the Southern District of Florida, had proceeded, it would have been the first time that a Venezuelan military officer had stood trial in the United States after being accused of abuses carried out under the government of Nicolás Maduro, Venezuela’s former president.
After Mr. Maduro took power following a hotly disputed 2013 election, Venezuelans who questioned the results protested for months, including in Barquisimeto, a city of 1.2 million people in northwest Venezuela.
The demonstrations turned violent and claimed at least 40 lives nationwide, including nine members of the security forces, and was a turning point in the new government’s willingness to crack down on dissent.
Human rights groups documented instances of aggressive raids by soldiers in Barquisimeto involving the use of tear gas and lack of search warrants at a minimum of 12 gated housing complexes.
The U.S. lawsuit against Mr. Quero Silva accused soldiers under his command of firing tear gas and rubber bullets into and at people’s apartment complexes; setting a building’s roof on fire; breaking apartment windows; and damaging buildings and cars. One plaintiff said her apartment had been targeted because she often rendered aid to protesters.
Mr. Quero Silva was often there at the forefront, the lawsuit said, overseeing these military raids. The plaintiffs knew him, and they said they recognized him while they were in custody or participating in protests — an unusual factor uncommon in human rights cases where victims try to hold perpetrators accountable.
Mr. Quero Silva returns to a Venezuela that has changed drastically since he left it. The U.S. military seized Mr. Maduro from a compound in the capital, Caracas, in an operation this year, saying he would face drug-trafficking charges in the United States.
The Trump administration then backed his vice president as the new acting leader of the country, with President Trump declaring that U.S. oversight could last for years.
Then, two severe earthquakes struck northern Venezuela this summer, devastating the country and exposing the extent to which emergency services, medical care and other critical parts of the nation had been hollowed out by corruption and mismanagement over many years.