In a secret hearing conducted by video call, the Attorney General of the Ortega-Murillo dictatorship formally charged retired Nicaraguan Army Major Eddie González with several alleged crimes, including attempted murder. An Ortega-supporting judge ordered him to be held in preventive detention.
According to information known by various media outlets, the former military officer is accused of attempted murder, aggravated obstruction of functions; improper use of emblems, uniforms or equipment of the Nicaraguan Army and the National Police, as well as manufacturing, trafficking, possession and use of restricted weapons, explosive substances or devices.
The regime’s Public Prosecutor’s Office, which has been branded by international organizations as a “factory of false crimes against opponents,” presented Norgen Isidro Castellón, Jhotys Alcides Herrera Cárdenas, Germán Domingo Rodríguez Sobalvarro, José Andrés Carrasco Torres and the State of Nicaragua as alleged victims.
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Eddie Gonzalez is a retired Army Major. Known for his high military training in Russia and Cuba, specializing in military intelligence and counterintelligence, he was a high-ranking officer in the intelligence department of the armed forces.
He is also the brother of journalist Nohelia González, who for many years was the head of information for La Prensa and later for Radio María. The dictatorship ordered the arrest of the journalist and to this day it is not known exactly if she was exiled or is in the prisons of the dictatorship. Faced with this situation, the ex-military man made the complaint public and for this reason, on July 15, the Police tried to take him from his house without an arrest warrant or a search warrant.
The former officer had to defend his house and his own by shooting because, as he said in a text message sent before the action, he was left with no other option. In the exchange of gunfire, at least one police officer and three armed men dressed in civilian clothes were injured and González himself was injured or severely beaten.
According to what can be seen in the videos that were released at the time of the raid, at least three police patrols were involved in the police operation, reinforced by armed people dressed in civilian clothes, who could well be police intelligence agents or paramilitaries. In the images, only one uniformed agent can be seen wounded in one of his arms, which leads one to believe that the other wounded were paramilitaries who attacked the house before the uniformed officers.
The accusation was presented on July 18 by assistant prosecutor Karen Rodríguez Idiáquez. The former officer is in police custody at the Estelí hospital. His health status is unknown.
This Monday, July 22, starting at 10:07 in the morning, the Criminal District Judge of Estelí, at the service of the Ortega-Murillo dictatorship, held a preliminary hearing in the González case and ordered that he be left in prison.
