In an environment of growing pressure from Ortega on the structures of the Supreme Court of Justice (SCJ) Katia Jaentschke Acevedo and Ruth Tapia Roa were dismissed by “superior orders” since the beginning of Octoberdirector of international relations and Protocol, respectively, confirmed sources from the Judiciary.
Katia Jaentschke is the daughter of the former Vice Chancellor Valdrack Jaentschke Whitaker, political operator of the regime and current “minister counselor” at the embassy in Costa Rica. She was removed from her position as Director of International Relations of the CSJ, which according to her professional profile on LinkedIn, she had held since September 2019.
The source noted that the cause of the abrupt dismissal is unknown, which caused “surprise and uncertainty among officials”, where Jaentschke was known as a professional who “fulfilled her duties as a public official and as a militant of the Sandinista Front”.
The order for the dismissal came directly from El Carmen —the presidential office and the FSLN secretariat headed by Néstor Moncada Lau— and was carried out without hesitation, the source said.
“They did not let her enter her office to collect her personal belongings.”, said the source from the judiciary, and criticized that “other people accused of serious cases of corruption continue as if nothing had happened in their posts, which generates even more confusion and rejection”.
Read: Defenestrated magistrate is now an advisor to the CSJ
The director of Protocol, Ruth Tapia Roa, who has a long history in the Ortega Murillo Government as secretary of the Ministry of Defense (2007-2012), ambassador to France, and spent three months as a representative before the Organization of American States (OAS).
Tapia’s dismissal occurred in the first week of October and as in the case of Jaentschke, the order came from the FSLN Secretariat in El Carmen.
In his brief period as a representative before the OAS in 2019, Tapia Roa defended the regime, when he was denounced for serious human rights violations committed against citizens in the April 2018 demonstrations.
“There are many good things in Nicaragua and I think that made the United States want to disrupt it, because we were in the best moment. We are a bad example for the region, because despite the fact that we are still the second poorest country in Latin America, we are a country that is advancing,” said Tapia Roa in an interview with documentary filmmaker Hernando Calvo Ospina.
Other sudden dismissals in the CSJ
The lawyer and former official of the Judiciary, Yader Morazán, published on his Twitter account on September 23, that Leónidas Tapia, adviser to the presidency of that state power, had been expelled and “then they do not let him pass even from the gate of the Supreme Court where he worked.
Considering him non-aligned, they expel Leonidas Tapia and then they don’t even let him pass the gate of the Supreme Court where he worked as an advisor to the presidency of that state power. (Left)?
I remind you that the advisors are the ones who do the work for the magistrates. pic.twitter.com/lhjV8wfmEo– Yader Morazán ⚖️ ?? (@YaderMorazan) September 23, 2022
The source consulted by CONFIDENTIAL confirmed that “when he returned from the national week vacations, Mr. Tapia was fired, without any official explanation.”
Tapia tried to travel on vacation outside the country on national daysbut “not only did they prevent him, but they also ordered his dismissal,” the source said.
Morazán confirmed that, through his contacts in the CSJ, he has been able to learn that there is a lot of partisan pressure on officials of the institution to participate in FSLN activities that are becoming more and more frequent, as November approaches, when they are planned municipal votes.
They confirm the testimony of “Sergio”
A former employee of the Judiciary, consulted on condition of anonymity, said that she felt identified with the testimony of “Sergio”, an official of this institution for more than a decade interviewed by the television program Esta Semana and CONFIDENCIAL.
“Sergio” expressed its “satiety” with the system of political surveillance to which they are subjected by the FSLN. He started working in the Judiciary more than 12 or 13 years ago, through a political endorsement, which is decisive to be able to work there, even if he has postgraduate studies.
According to his story, the situation they live in is one of subjugation to the will of the ruling party: on weekends they must participate in activities and also watch opponents. That is why they felt hope, when the resignation was given last March of the Ambassador Arturo McFields, as representative of the tyranny before the OAS.
“The workers of the Judiciary must feel like those of the Russian Army. They go to a war because they have no other choice. Without the motivation that they defend a legitimate cause, quite the opposite. That is what makes them want to give up everything at the first opportunity, and that feeling is present from the high levels to the low. They know they work for a mafia,” added the former employee of the Judiciary.
In addition to the testimony of “Sergio”, CONFIDENTIAL published last October 2nd a conversation between “Alicia”, another state worker, who confirmed that there is minimal support for the dictatorship among state employees.
For former opposition deputy Eliseo Núñez, former member of the Justice Commission, the CSJ is today a “partisan stronghold that obeys the orders of Daniel Ortega,” ignoring the interests of citizens.
Núñez affirms that the sentences of the CSJ can be reviewed and there is not a single one in which they agree with a user who goes against the State for any reason. “There is simply an order from the beginning that there are no sentences against the State, when it comes to compensating or paying something,” he added.
He also recalled, as proof of the fidelity of the Judiciary to Ortega, the rulings that have clearly favored the FSLN, such as the one that allowed the tyrant to be re-elected in 2011, the elimination of the legal status of the Independent Liberal Party in June 2016, as well as the claim for legal status of the Sandinista Renovation Movement that sleeps in the sleep of the just.
“It is a judicial system totally submitted and, on top of that, after 2018, it is one that assumes as his own Ortega’s political discourse that there is a coup d’état and that he acts because of that and not to impart justice. That is to say, they consider everyone condemned and they lend themselves to all kinds of human rights violations,” lamented the former legislator.
