The Nicaraguan justice sentenced on Tuesday night the president of the Superior Council of Private Enterprise, Michael Heally, to 13 years in prison. Similarly, the vice president of this union, Álvaro Vargas, was sentenced to nine years in prison, reported the Cenidh human rights center.
Both Heally and Vargas had already been found guilty on April 29 for the alleged crime of undermining national integrity and conspiracy to undermine national integrity in a trial held behind closed doors in the cells known as El Chipote, in Managua, where they have been detained since 2021.
With the condemnation of both union leaders, the political trials ordered by the government of Daniel Ortega against some 50 leaders and figures in the country who are critical of his policies culminate. The penalties imposed range from 7 to 13 years in prison.
Among those sentenced are the seven opponents who aspired to compete with Ortega in the elections of November 7, in which the president was imposed for a new period of five more years.
Miguel Mora, candidate for the Democratic Restoration Party, was sentenced to 13 years in prison; the same sentence was declared for the other candidates for the presidency Félix Maradiaga, Juan Sebastián Chamorro, Arturo Cruz and Noel Vidaurre.
The lesser sentence was received by Cristiana Chamorro, also a candidate for the presidency, who is serving eight years in prison but under house arrest.
“Sentences close a phase of the dictatorship”
With the convictions of the 50 Nicaraguan opponents, the outlook remains uncertain in the country, they tell the VOA some critics of Ortega who are in exile for fear of being arrested.
Recently Laureano Ortega, son of President Daniel Ortega tried to approach Washington in search of reducing the sanctions imposed by Washington on the political environment of Managua. The United States confirmed that it maintains “communication” with the Nicaraguan authorities, but other progress in that dialogue is unknown.
For now and contrary to forecasts, the ruling party announced a series of reforms to the laws under which opponents were detained.
“With the sentences handed down, the dictatorship closes a phase of repression,” he tells the VOA opposition leader Héctor Mairena, from UNAMOS.
In UNAMOS there are agglutinated Sandinista dissidents such as the former guerrilla Dora María Téllez, Suyen Barahona; Ana Margarita Vigil and Víctor Hugo Tinoco, all of them also in prison.
Mairena sees the panorama in Nicaragua with alarm and assures that the latest sentence is “a direct aggression” against the business community and lamented the silence of this union.
“These sentences and penalties are part of what specialists have called the institutionalization of the authoritarian state. The sentence against businessmen is a direct aggression against an important sector. Unfortunately they still do not react“, Mairena said by telephone to the VOA.
The United States has branded the trials in Nicaragua as “a mockery” loaded with procedural irregularities, according to what it told the VOA a State Department spokesman.
“These trials appear to be intended to terrorize and discourage other Nicaraguans from exercising their rights,” the US said.
Ortega began to imprison his critics since May 2021, in the middle of the electoral year, when the polls were not favorable to the Sandinista president. Nicaragua has been going through a political crisis since 2018, from the protests that left more than 300 dead, according to human rights organizations.
The Sandinista president has said that the protests were an attempted coup by the opposition together with business, ecclesiastical and social movement sectors.
“With these unjust convictions, the cycle of judicial persecution against the political prisoners who are in El Chipote and under house arrest is closed. We demand that the higher authorities revoke these unjust imprisonments and illegal sentences”, the Nicaraguan Center for Human Rights (Cenidh) has said in this regard.
Connect with the Voice of America! Subscribe to our channel Youtube and turn on notifications, or follow us on social media: Facebook, Twitter and Instagram
