The political commentator, Jaime Arellano, and the former presidential candidate and conservative politician, Noel Vidaurre, were found guilty by the Ortega justice for the alleged crime of “conspiring to undermine national integrity.” The trial was led by Ulisa Yahoska Tapia Silvaof the Thirteenth Court, and was brought to the Judicial Assistance Directorate (DAJ), known as El Chipote.
The Prosecutor’s Office requested nine years in prison for Vidaurre, and 13 years for Arellano, in addition to disqualification from public office for both.
The key evidence presented by the Prosecutor’s Office against the conservative politician was three videos: the first, an interview with the international journalist Jaime Baily, in February 2020; the second, another interview with Arellano to address the context of the country and diplomatic relations between Nicaragua and Argentina; and the third date since 2017, with a Central American media outlet, in which Vidaurre presented his presidential aspirations for 2021, confirmed CONFIDENTIAL.
In the case of Arellano, they presented an interview where they identified the guest as a supposed high-ranking official of the United States Government, but when they asked the witness for his name, he did not answer. Both political prisoners were witnesses at their trial, denied the alleged conspiracy, and pleaded not guilty. At the hearing, the Prosecutor’s Office presented six police witnesses.
In his last words, Vidaurre told the judge that “he is no traitor to the country”what “love nicaragua”and that “I was never going to conspire with Arellano”whom he described as a person of integrity.
For his part, Arellano assured that he is a presenter with more than 25 years of experience, and that both members of the opposition and government officials have participated in his programs. He detailed that invited Vidaurre for his political career in the country.
under house for jail
Arellano and Vidaurre were arrested on Saturday July 24, 2021, after attending an interrogation before the Public Ministry. The National Police reported, that same day, that they were sentenced to house arrest and that they were supposedly being investigated under Law 1055 or the Sovereignty Law.
The defendants, together with the former deputy María Fernanda Flores —sentenced to eight years in prison— and the former presidential candidate, Cristiana Chamorro Barrios —whose trial begins on March 3—, have remained under house arrest for more than seven months, and Little is known about the conditions of the confinement to which they have been subjected.
After the appointment at the Prosecutor’s Office, Vidaurre assured that they did not tell him the specific reasons for the call, only that it was due to comments made in the media. “I have never talked about sanctioning Nicaragua or anything like that,” he said.
Arellano declared to the media that he was threatened with the application of the Cybercrime and “Sovereignty” laws.
“They replicated the law and made several comments that I had made and that, according to them, I was on the verge of being a crime. It was more than anything like an interrogation of the different comments that I have made, to try to intimidate one of them,” said Arellano.
He added that the interrogation “is part of the intimidation mechanism. They asked me if my comment on President Ortega’s speech on July 19 — 2021 — had been correct, I told them yes, that I didn’t see it appropriate for the president to say that in an election year and that it seems they didn’t like it. ”, he expressed at the time.
