The Daniel Ortega regime promoted its intelligence chief, General Commissioner Zhukov Serrano Pérez, as deputy general director of the Police this Wednesday, November 23, according to the presidential agreement 168 -2022published in the official newspaper La Gaceta.
Serrano Pérez assumed the functions of General Commissioner Alfredo Joel Marenco Corea, one of the most loyal officials of the dictatorial couple with experience in the area of espionage, acting behind the scenes to identify targets from the Police that the State considers their threats.
The tyrant appointed Marenco Corea on secondment to the Institute of Social Security and Human Development (ISSDHU), the financial arm in charge of the financial administration of Police pensions and also of the institutions that depend on the Ministry of the Interior.
Instead, Pérez Serrano was promoted. In 2014 he was senior commissioner and in 2019 he was already general commissioner, by the will of the ruler in an institution in which “institutionality was erased and it is going at the pace of the political will of Ortega and Rosario Murillo”, commented an expert in relation to the involution institution of the Police until it became a family repressive arm.
Pérez, an expert in intelligence and counterintelligence
According to police sources consulted, Pérez Serrano has known experience in the field of intelligence and counterintelligence, emphasizing “checking and surveillance.” Public records indicate that he was already directing the police intelligence area in 2018, when the regime brutally repressed thousands of protesters who took to the streets to protest against Ortega, demanding his resignation and that of Vice President Rosario Murillo.
In the police command structure of the dictatorship, Ortega and Murillo occupy the top, followed by security adviser Néstor Moncada Lau. All, with the exception of the ruler, have been sanctioned for serious human rights abuses.
A few days ago, the dictatorship expanded its team in this specialty, appointed to former police deputy director Horacio Rocha as adviser. The sources explained that these commanders communicate with the formal police authorities to inform them of the political decisions of the government leadership.
Among the formal authorities, the director of the Police and Ortega’s in-law, Francisco Díaz Madriz; the deputy director and number two of the institution, Ramón Avellán, executor in addition to repression and Marenco, the espionage expert. That was until now that he has been replaced by Serrano Pérez. “We do not know the reasons why they moved it,” commented the same sources.
According to public records, Serrano Pérez was promoted to general commissioner on September 19, 2019, when the Police celebrated 40 years of history. On that occasion, Díaz Madriz recalled the Sandinista origins of the armed forces and maintained that they remained cohesive and loyal to the supreme leadership, referring to Ortega.
On that occasion, the police director promised that the “horror and barbarism” would not return, as the State describes the peaceful protests carried out in 2018 and that put the dictatorship in check. They were brutally repressed by the Executive. The Executive imposed terror through the Police, the shock groups and the parapolice groups loyal to Ortega.
According to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR), at least 355 dead were killed in that context and more than 2000 were injured. However, before public opinion and without any evidence, they have maintained that they were victims of an attempted coup d’état, while violating the rights of Nicaraguans to mobilise, assembly and association.
