The Justice of the regime of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo sentenced the bishop of Matagalpa, Rolando Álvarez, in an express impeachment trial, to a sentence of 26 years and four months, calling him a “traitor to the homeland” and fabricating the crimes of “undermining the national integrity, propagation of false news through information technology, obstruction of functions or aggravated disobedience, all in real competition and to the detriment of Nicaraguan society”.
In addition, the regime ordered the religious leader to be stripped of his nationality, as it did with the 222 political prisoners released into exile on February 9.
Monsignor was transferred Thursday to the La Modelo prison in Tipitapa, after he refused to board the plane that would transfer him to the United States along with 222 other political prisoners who were exiled.
In a public address, the dictator Daniel Ortega said that when “the character Alvarez” was lining up to get on the plane, “starts to say that he is not leaving. That he first had to meet with the bishops, and he demands a meeting with the bishops. An absurd thing, if there is a provision of the Nicaraguan State, which he cannot question.
“Faced with a decision by the Nicaraguan State, he says that he does not abide by it. It is a resolution of a court of justice that is sending him out of the country, and that he does not comply with, if he did not meet with the bishops, and since the other priests were already on the plane, they should call the priests, because he had to talk to them,” he said.
First bishop arrested
Álvarez, 56, is the first bishop arrested and accused since Ortega returned to power in Nicaragua in 2007. The bishop was abducted at dawn on August 19 by police from a provincial episcopal palace along with four priests, two seminarians and a cameraman, after having been confined for 15 days.
The Police, led by Francisco Díaz, Ortega’s in-law, accused Álvarez of trying to “organize violent groups”, supposedly “with the purpose of destabilizing the State of Nicaragua and attacking the constitutional authorities”, although he has not offered evidence.
The prelate has been taken without his religious clothing to the hearings held at the Managua Judicial Complex.
