The lawyer Santos Sebastián Flores Castillo, who denounced that President Daniel Ortega, allegedly sexually abused his sister since he was 15 years old, died in a prison where he had been held since 2013 in unknown circumstances, reported the Nicaraguan Center for Human Rights (Cenidh) .
Flores Castillo, 52, allegedly died Tuesday in the National Penitentiary System, known as “La Modelo.” Vilma Núñez, president of Cenidh, explained that the family is certain that the lawyer’s death was not natural.
So far, Cenidh confirmed that the body was examined by a forensic doctor and there is a legal medical opinion, which has not been accessed. The body was given to a relative, it was veiled and buried with great discretion in Gardens of Remembrance. “We do not know to whom, personally, they gave it (the body) or what they told him,” Núñez told CONFIDENTIAL.
Cenidh, which accompanies the family in the case it filed against Ortega before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR), demanded that the Ministry of the Interior initiate an exhaustive investigation to determine the causes of Flores Castillo’s death.
?We have received information that Santos Sebastián Flores Castillo, who publicly accused Daniel Ortega of raping his 15-year-old sister, HAS DEAD in La Modelo prison in Tipitapa, where he was detained since 2013. pic.twitter.com/NkmTodLAQx
– Cenidh (@cenidh) November 10, 2021
“It is the obligation of the Penitentiary System to clarify that death,” stressed Núñez, who also questioned the silence of the authorities, who after three days since the case was publicly known, has not issued a statement explaining the causes of death, contrary to other deaths of inmates in which they issue a press release.
The lawyer was confined in gallery 300, maximum security. His treatment was not equal with respect to the other inmates. His health had been deteriorating, said Núñez, who added that Flores Castillo’s mother had a presentiment that he would die under pressure.
They convicted him of rape
Flores Castillo is the brother of Elvia Junieth Flores Castillo, 32, who, according to the complaint by the brothers and herself, was sexually abused by Ortega since she was 15 years old.
The brother of the alleged victim of Ortega was accused and sentenced to 15 years in prison for the crime of rape against an employee of the Judiciary, charges that were always denied by the convict and his family.
Before being imprisoned, on June 17, 2013, the lawyer had been trying for several years to get his sister’s case to emerge through human rights organizations.
The case became relevant in November 2017 when his relatives decided to report from Miami, where they went into exile, mistreatment and torture to which the inmate was subjected in prison.
At that time, Elvia Junieth, now a mother of two children and unrelated to Ortega, gave a press conference by telephone in 2017, in which she stated: “I am the main victim of abuse of power by the President of Nicaragua, Daniel Ortega Saavedra; It has destroyed my family, it has destroyed me ”.
The case is currently before the @CIDH and it is identified with the number 2192-15 and has an admissibility report signed on September 7, 2021. At exactly 2 months, Daniel Ortega carried out his last electoral fraud. We share report link: https://t.co/sUDrQOBMsn pic.twitter.com/dgb8SLC31D
– Cenidh (@cenidh) November 10, 2021
Case before IACHR and OMCT
That same year, the IACHR learned the details of the now deceased’s case and began its own investigations, which lasted four years, until he was admitted on September 7.
Since then, the Secretary General of the World Organization Against Torture (OMCT), Gerald Staberock, had contacted the Ortega government to express his “concern” about the conditions of Flores Castillo in prison, which included complaints about “Serious mistreatment, isolation, and restriction of visits”, as well as lack of access to health and human rights defenders.
Before Elvia Junieth’s case was known, Ortega had already been the subject of a similar complaint by his stepdaughter, Zoilamérica Ortega Murillo, daughter of Vice President Rosario Murillo.
Murillo’s case did not progress in the Judicial Branch, controlled by the Sandinistas, and he went into exile in Costa Rica.
Flores Castillo’s family always maintained that their case was not political, but humanitarian, however, they held Ortega responsible for what happened to Santos Sebastián in prison.
With information from EFE
