This Sunday, June 5, the former diplomat and former presidential candidate Arthur Cross He is serving a year in prison, now under house arrest, convicted of the alleged crime of conspiring to undermine national integrity.
The 68-year-old political prisoner was detained at the Augusto C. Sandino International Airport in Managua in 2021 when he was returning to the country from various meetings with political personalities in the United States.
Ortega’s former ambassador in Washington, the Public Ministry accused him of “carrying out acts that undermine independence, sovereignty, and self-determination, inciting foreign interference in internal affairs,” according to the recent Law 1055, Sovereignty Law. Under this controversial rule, the Ortega-Murillo regime brought charges against dozens of opponents at the gates of the 2021 presidential elections, in which Daniel Ortega declared himself the winner.
The Daniel Ortega’s former ambassador to the United States (2007-2009) was called a “traitor of the country” by the regime’s propaganda media. In March 2022 he was sentenced to nine years in prison.
While he remained in the cells of the Directorate of Judicial Assistance, known as “El Nuevo Chipote”, described as a torture center for political prisoners, his relatives affirm that he was very thin, sick and without specialized medical attention. In addition, they noticed signs of Parkinson’s, due to the torture and inhuman conditions to which he was subjected for eight months.
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At midnight on February 19, the regime reported that Arturo Cruz, together with the political prisoners Francisco Aguirre Sacasa and José Pallais, were placed under “house arrest” under police custody, after the death of former guerrilla fighter and prisoner for political reasons Hugo Torres. Since then, no further details about Cruz’s situation have been allowed.
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Former diplomat Arturo Cruz has a doctorate in History from the University of Oxford in England and was a professor at INCAE Business School for 25 years. At the beginning of 2021 he resigned from his position, due to his aspiration to compete in the elections November 7 for the presidential position.
