Without specifying the alleged crimes committed, the dictatorship accused five relatives of politically persecuted people, whom it has kept as hostages incommunicado for twenty days in the police cells of El Chipote in Managua.
On September 13, one day before the national holidays, the authorities searched for Javier Álvarez Zamora at his home. Not finding him, they took his wife Jeannine Horvilleur Cuadra and their daughter Ana Carolina—both Nicaraguan-French citizens—and they did the same thing the next day with his son-in-law Félix Roiz Sotomayor.
All of Álvarez’s relatives were kept in legal limbo, while the persecuted politician denounced from exile the arbitrary detention and the escalation of repression in that “if we don’t catch you, your family is the one that is going to pay”, which considered a “barbarism”.
They also captured Gabriel López del Carmen, 34, who was at the home of his mother, Andrea Margarita del Carmen Ibarra, politically persecuted by the regime.
process violation
According to a criminal lawyer, consulted on condition of anonymity, with this case the judicial system is repeating a pattern of concealing data from the population that began with the lawsuits brought against the priests, in the midst of the regime’s incessant attack on the Catholic Church.
“They are affecting the publicity of the processes. The Nicarao system (that of the courts, reviewed by the lawyers to check the proceedings and documents of their clients’ cases), was created so that anyone could have access to the information and one of the details that they must have is the type of crime for which they are accusing him, it is basic, ”said the jurist.
The trials in general against political prisoners have been characterized by the violation of the right to defense. The defense lawyers at different times denounced the lack of access to the files, the refusal of the courts to allow a meeting with the accused, who are kept under torture and in isolation conditions.
The lack of substance of the evidence presented by the Prosecutor’s Office has also been denounced, which is mostly based on testimonies of Police officers, that is, members of an institution identified as responsible for the repression orchestrated by the dictator Daniel Ortega. , who constitutionally is its supreme chief.
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the accusations
According to the title page of judicial matter 021717-ORM4-2022-PN, the State identifies itself as a victim of the actions of its relatives. The prosecutor Heydi Estela Ramírez Olivas accused the relatives of Javier Alvarez and Álvarez on September 30 at 2:27 in the afternoon. The indictment is 11 pages long. The process is currently pending before the Sixth Criminal District Court of Hearing of Managua in charge of Judge Rolando Salvador Sanarrusia Munguía.
Prosecutor Ramírez Olivas is known for her work persecuting independent media in the case of the Violeta Barrios de Chamorro Foundation, in which she threatened journalists with applying the cybercrime law, after accusing them of publishing false news during interrogation processes. .
Read: The United States sanctions 23 Nicaraguan Ortega judges and prosecutors
Sanarrusia is one of the sanctioned judges on the Engel list, published by the United States in mid-July, which punishes people who have undermined democratic processes or institutions. The measure prevents them from accessing a visa and therefore they cannot enter US territory, according to the resolution.
Mother asks: “What can my son be accused of?”
Gabriel Alfonso López del Carmen, 34, and son of the persecuted politician Andrea Margarita del Carmen Ibarra, was also accused at 2:38 in the afternoon of the same September 30 by the prosecutor Andrea del Carmen Salas Gómez, according to the matter. 021724-ORM4-2022-PN.
“This is the regime’s cruel response to the impossibility of capturing me. I had to take refuge outside the country due to persecution by the regime, and since I was not at home, the police captured my son. My son lives in Matagalpa but I asked him to come take care of my mother for a few days, since she is an elderly woman and she is sick. They took him hostage, and now they’re unfairly prosecuting him. What can they accuse him of? They know perfectly well that my son has no ties to political activities, and therefore they should release him,” Mrs. Andrea Del Carmen told CONFIDENTIAL.
The document has six pages. The case is brought by the same judge Sanarrusia. Rooms is one of the prosecutors that is part of the judicial machinery with which Ortega condemned prisoners of conscience.
They also accused the brother of a leader of UNAMOS
That September 30, at 2:23 in the afternoon, with the same dose of secrecy, Freddy Martín Porras García was also accused by prosecutor Yubelca del Carmen Pérez Alvarado, a prominent persecutor of political prisoners and sanctioned on the same Engel list. The judge in charge is also Sanarrusia, according to case 021719-ORM4-2022-PN.
The indictment in this case is six pages long. Porras García was at his residence in Jinotepe, Carazo, when he was arrested. The raid occurred at six in the afternoon on September 15, Independence Day.
Also: Police kidnap the brother of the UNAMOS leader in Jinotepe
The defendant is the brother of the leader of Unamos—the former Sandinista Renovation Movement (MRS)—, Dulce Porras, who also denounced the case from exile. “I feel that the new wave of arrests by the Nicaraguan regime is against relatives of those of us who are here, in exile,” she commented at the time.
The complaints of the politically persecuted have been supported by human rights organizations such as the Never Again Collective, founded in Costa Rica and which have pointed out the illegality of the arrests.
