“Where is the man of the Church choir?” was the question asked by the National Police officers when they arrested Santos Julio Sevilla Rivera, 55 years old. The man, who suffers from a disability, was part of the choir of the San Francisco de Asís Parish in Estelí for 26 years and collaborated as a Cáritas messenger in that department.
Sevilla Rivera was captured by law enforcement agents on May 20, 2023, in an all-out war that the regime of Daniel Ortega and Murillo has waged against the Nicaraguan Catholic Church since the beginning of social protests in Nicaragua in April 2018.
Lawyer Martha Patricia Molina, researcher and author of the report “Nicaragua, a persecuted Church,” denounced that the political prisoner “is losing his vision in prison.”
Sevilla had been working as a courier for Cáritas Estelí for 23 years. He was subjected to an unfair and arbitrary trial on December 21, 2023 and sentenced to six years in prison for alleged money laundering.
«His trial was behind closed doors and without respecting the guarantees of due process. They never allowed him a lawyer he trusted. “His kidnapping was clear revenge of the Sandinista dictatorship because Don Julio was a collaborator of Monsignor Rolando Álvarez,” Molina denounced in his X account.
The Ortega regime began an “investigation” for alleged money laundering against the Dioceses that make up the Ecclesiastical Province of Nicaragua. Nothing more was known about this legal process; Yes, there was progress or the case was archived, but three people in Estelí were tried and convicted.
The legal personality of the Estelí Diocesan Cáritas Association was canceled on February 2, 2022, along with three organizations linked to the Dioceses of Estelí and five private universities in Nicaragua.
