The regime of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo began this Tuesday, January 17, the judicial process against the French citizens, who also hold Nicaraguan nationality, Jeannine Horvilleur Cuadra and Ana Álvarez Horvilleur, wife and daughter respectively of opposition member Javier Álvarez. In the case, they also prosecute Félix Roiz Sotomayor, Álvarez’s son-in-law.
Sources on condition of anonymity referred in statements to Article 66 that the trial will continue tomorrow, January 18, and they are unaware of the situation of the defendants. The trial ended in the afternoon, “we do not have more information, more than what happens with other trials. Until a couple of hours ago they had not let any relatives in. They were on a lunch break, we don’t know more. The trial session ended today and will continue tomorrow.”
Related news: They denounce “violation of due process” in the trial against Félix Roiz, his wife and mother-in-law
Horvilleur Cuadra, 63, and his daughter, Ana Álvarez Horvilleur, 43, along with Roiz Sotomayor, are being accused by the Sandinista justice for the alleged crimes of conspiring to commit national integrity and spreading false news, two instruments legal measures used to repress, imprison, and silence dissident voices and critics of the Ortega-Murillo regime.
These citizens were detained by the Police on September 13, 2022, one day before the national festivities. Officials were looking for Javier Álvarez and when they could not find him, because he had gone into exile in search of international protection, they decided to imprison his relatives.
The opponent then denounced that police officers broke into his home arbitrarily and without a warrant.
Last October, the opponent stressed that none of his relatives had committed a crime and pointed out that the dictatorship locked them up for having ties to him. Álvarez then considered that “this new modality, of detaining the relatives of an opponent, when they cannot find him, is a very serious aggression and violation of the most elementary human rights”, by transferring an alleged blame to his direct relatives.
William Roiz Murillo, father of the detainee, has asked the regime for the immediate release of his son. “They are all innocent. In this case, reasonable doubt prevails and every judge must release the defendants, because it is better to release a guilty person than to sentence an innocent person,” he said.
