After 189 days in detention by the dictatorship of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo, Michael Healy and Álvaro Vargas, president and vice president of the Superior Council of Private Enterprise (Cosep), respectively, will be subjected to a political trial this Thursday, April 28.
Both union leaders of the country’s main employers are singled out by the Public Ministry for the alleged crimes of “undermining national integrity” for having “attacked the rights of the Nicaraguan people and society.”
At the end of January, it emerged that the regime had dropped the money laundering charges against the two businessmen. That information was revealed by César Zamora to the plenary session of Cosep in an ordinary meeting. After this information was known, the criminal process against the political prisoners is on hold and the secrecy of their relatives is greater.
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«Lawyer Enrique Genie and Mr. César Zamora had the opportunity to talk with Mr. Michael (Healy), José Adán (Aguerri) and Mr. Álvaro (Vargas), and they informed them that Cosep and its cameras are with them. They ask for help. In the conversation they informed him that César Zamora and Alfredo Cuadra were coordinated with Cosep, ”reads the memory of the meeting.
In that same meeting, Zamora clarified that he is ready for a “negotiation” with the Ortega-Murillo regime to achieve the release of José Adán Aguerri, Healy and Vargas. “Today we have to talk about a negotiation, a dialogue, an encounter, all because of three friends who are desperate and we owe it to them,” he said.
Michael Healy and Álvaro Vargas were arrested on October 21, 2021. Healy was summoned to the Prosecutor’s Office for an “interview” in the case of the Nicaraguan Foundation for Economic and Social Development (Funides), that same day he was arrested minutes after make a statement before the Ortega authorities.
The businessman was incredulous when the media asked him if he was not afraid of being imprisoned by the regime after the interview, as happened with the political prisoners Mauricio Díaz and Félix Maradiaga, among others. Healy said, “I don’t think they’re taking me into custody,” those were his last words publicly.
