Nicaragua's jailed ex-rebel leader dies

Retired Nicaraguan general and former guerrilla leader Hugo Torres passed away at the age of 73 on Saturday, his family and government prosecutors said.

Torres was a major player in the 1970s Sandinista Revolution that overthrew the Somoza family dictatorship in Nicaragua.

Prior to his death, he had been imprisoned as part of a crackdown by President Daniel Ortega's government against opposition politicians. Torres, who had once worked to help free Ortega from prison himself, split with the Nicaraguan leader two decades ago.

What do we know about his death?

Torres' children confirmed his death in a statement, expressing their "deep pain over the death of our beloved father."

The family statement did not provide details about the cause of death, and it is unclear whether the conditions in prison accelerated his passing.

His children said there would be no ceremony or public funeral in accordance with their father's wishes.

The government prosecutor's office said that Torres had been moved to a hospital in the capital Managua, saying he passed from "illnesses he had."

Why was he jailed?

Torres was one of 46 opposition leaders, and potential presidential candidates, who were jailed by Ortega ahead of the country's presidential elections last year.

Authorities justified the detentions by charging Torres and many of the others on the grounds of undermining national security.

Government prosecutors said on Saturday that they had asked judicial authorities "to suspend the start of his oral public trial for humanitarian reasons."

According to AP news agency, the trials against the currently imprisoned opposition leaders are not public and are held in prison. Some of the proceedings last only a few hours.

Ortega, whose rule increasingly includes harsh crackdowns on demonstrations or opposition, was reelected to a fourth consecutive term last November.

He ran almost unopposed after jailing his opponents. The presidential elections have been criticized by election monitors as a farce.

From rebel leader to political prisoner

Torres was born on April 24, 1948 in Madriz, Nicaragua. He went on to become a prominent guerrilla leader in the Sandinista Revolution.

He fought alongside Ortega during the country's civil war and later became the first head of state security after the revolution in 1979. He also helped transform the rebel army into the professional Nicaraguan Army, later retiring from the military in the 1990s after rising in the ranks to become a general.

Prior to his imprisonment and death, he served as the vice president of the opposition Democratic Renovation Union (Unamos), formerly known as the Sandinista Renovation Movement, which was founded by military leaders unhappy with Ortega.

During the revolution, Torres once took part in an operation to free Ortega and other rebel leaders from prison.

The cold irony of the turn of events was not lost on Torres, who mentioned it in a video statement released ahead of his arrest.

"46 years ago I risked my life to get Daniel Ortega and other political-prisoner colleagues out of prison," he said in the video last June.

"I am 73, and I never thought that at this stage of my life I was going to be fighting against another dictatorship, now more brutal, more unscrupulous, more irrational and more autocratic than the Somoza dictatorship,'' he added.

rs/wd (AP, Reuters, AFP)