The dictatorship of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo, through its repressive Police, charged several dioceses of the Nicaraguan Catholic Church with the crime of money laundering, while making the freezing of the accounts of the religious institution official.
In a statement from the Ortega Police dated May 27, the regime assures that, after an alleged complaint, which does not specify who, they proceeded to investigate and found “hundreds of thousands of dollars hidden in bags in dioceses of the country.” The statement is superficial and opaque as it does not give further details.
The document disclosed by the institution of the dictatorship indicates that institutions such as the Prosecutor’s Office, the Financial Analysis Unit (UAF) and the Superintendency of Banks (SIB) participate in the alleged investigation, the latter requested the highest representative of the Church in the country, Cardinal Leopoldo Brenes, the documents that support the movement of bank accounts of the Catholic institution.
According to the police note, the entity received information on May 19 about the “illegal activity” in the management of resources that had belonged to people convicted of treason, possibly in reference to the bishop of the Diocese of Matagalpa and apostolic administrator. of the Diocese of Estelí, Monsignor Rolando Álvarez, sentenced by the dictatorship to more than 26 years in prison for the alleged crime of treason.
Related news: Ortega began to freeze bank accounts of the Church since last weekend and in several Dioceses
They assure that “dioceses”, without specifying which ones, would be involved in the withdrawal of money from already frozen accounts, and therein one of the inconsistencies in the statement, since no banking institution would release money from frozen accounts by virtue of a court ruling.
“The result of the investigation confirmed the illegal theft of resources from bank accounts that had been ordered by law to be frozen, as well as other illegal acts that are still being investigated as part of a money laundering network that has been discovered in different dioceses. departments,” says the Ortega Police.
The repressive institution does not even grant the presumption of innocence. He affirms that, together with the Attorney General of the Republic, the SIB and the UAF “have confirmed criminal movements with funds for the dioceses.”
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The rejection reactions did not wait. The defense lawyer for political prisoners Yonarqui Martínez, whose legal title was recently annulled by the dictatorship, said that an organization cannot be condemned and say that they are investigating, as the dictatorship is doing.
“What is the cause of so much viciousness?” asked the defender, and analyzes that the regime blocked the bank accounts of the entire Church to cause the parishes to become insolvent and close. “It is not lawful to attack freedom of worship,” said the lawyer.
Likewise, he called on those who gave the order to attack the Church, to “reconsider and stop committing abuses against innocents.”
