Nicaragua tries, sentences opposition leaders
March 4, 2022
Nicaraguan opposition figure Cristiana Chamorro and one of her brothers were formally placed on trial on Thursday.
Chamorro had been detained since June of last year while planning an election challenge to President Daniel Ortega. She, her brother Pedro Joaquin Chamorro and three former employees of the Violeta Barrios de Chamorro Foundation will be tried for money laundering and other alleged crimes.
Why is opposition being targeted?
She was one of the first opposition leaders in a wave of detentions last year. Some of these included presidential candidates, whose detention paved the way for Ortega's re-election on November 7.
Chamorro, the daughter of former President Violeta Barrios de Chamorro, has maintained her innocence.
Earlier, former Deputy Foreign Affairs Minister Jose Pallais, 68, and business leader Jose Adan Aguerri were sentenced to 13 years imprisonment. Opposition activists Violeta Granera and leader Tamara Davila received sentences of eight years.
Hugo Torres, a former guerrilla leader who once helped free then rebel Ortega from prison, died at 73 while awaiting trial.
The judicial system in Nicaragua has already sentenced several opposition figures to prison for "conspiracy to undermine national integrity."
Ortega has also cracked down on several non-governmental organizations, especially those receiving funding from abroad. They have been accused of a broader conspiracy to remove him from office in 2018.
String of trials
The recent string of trials have been held in El Chipote prison, and defendants have only been allowed to have their lawyers present.
"As far as the charges against them, there are nonexistent crimes. In that sense, the government can never prove these absurd accusations," said Vilma Nunez, president of the Nicaraguan Center for Human Rights.
Nicaragua has violently cracked down on anti-government protests since 2018, and thousands have fled the country. Ortega has maintained that his critics have been working with foreign powers or encouraged other nations to put sanctions on him and his family.
tg/sms (AFP, AP)