The political prisoner Pedro Joaquín Chamorro Barrios celebrates this Monday, April 25, 2022, 10 months of being in captivity in the prisons of the dictatorship of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo. The opposition politician is isolated in the Judicial Assistance Directorate (DAJ) in Managua, known as “El Nuevo Chipote.”
Chamorro was found guilty for the crime of abusive management, ideological falsehood, appropriation and improper retention. He was sentenced to nine years in prison and disqualified from holding public office.
The family of the prisoner of conscience continues to demand his immediate release because they consider that he is unjustly detained. He was arbitrarily arrested on Friday, June 25, around midnight, at his home. Days before, he had expressed his intentions to run for the Presidency of the Republic.
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“It has been 10 months since my father Pedro Joaquín Chamorro was unjustly taken to the infamous El Chipote prison in Nicaragua. At 70 years old, his health has deteriorated a lot and we fear for his life,” his daughter Valentina Chamorro wrote on Twitter.
Pedro Joaquín is a member of the extinct Citizens for Freedom (CxL) party and is part of the electoral political prisoners detained between May and November 2021, a few months before the presidential votes.
Before being imprisoned, he constantly demanded the freedom of his sister Cristiana and held the Ortega-Murillo regime responsible for what might happen to him. Pedro Joaquín was prosecuted together with Cristiana and other workers of the former Violeta Barrios de Chamorro Foundation, where they allegedly committed the crimes they were accused of.
In addition to Pedro Joaquín, his sister Cristiana Chamorro is also in prison; his cousins Juan Sebastián Chamorro García and the general manager of La Prensa, Juan Lorenzo Holmann Chamorro, all considered political prisoners of the Ortega dictatorship.
