The relatives of the four religious and three lay people imprisoned and on trial They must continue to use the resources offered by the Nicaraguan legal system in defense of their relatives. Not because they can expect justice of some courts that are completely subordinated to the dictatorship of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo, but to be able to claim, either in the future, or in international courts, said the lawyer Yader Morazán, in the program This week.
After annulling the leaders of the opposition organizations, the regime intensified its attacks against the Nicaraguan Catholic Church, imprisoning, prosecuting and condemning various religious such as Father Manuel Garcia, from Nandaime; a Monsignor Leonardo Urbina; to the parish priest of Mulukukú, Óscar Benavides; the Bishop of Matagalpa, Monsignor Rolando Álvarez and his companions, in addition to ban catholic processionseither the 453rd anniversary of the translation of the Bible into Spanishwhich commemorate evangelical churches.
Family members “can appeal in fact, which is a procedure that exists when you have been denied the right to appeal, to appeal in parallel. Here we already know that this is not going to prosper, but it is important that the fight be carried out within the procedure, to evidence and document all these arbitrariness, one by one; either to promote a review action, where higher courts are used to say that constitutional rights and guarantees are being violated, or to prepare scenarios for a future process, in other national or international instances, ”explained the specialist in the administration of justice.
The former judicial official said that it is not known precisely what the specific crimes for which they are accused are, lamenting that “even the relatives have had to inform themselves through the little information that Judicial Power workers have leaked”, to find out that clandestine hearings have been held, with defenses imposed by themselveswithout there being more information through the physical or digital file.
According to the electronic system of the Judiciary, the accused priests are Ramiro Tijerino Chavezrector general of the John Paul II University; Jose Luis Diaz Cruzvicar of the Cathedral of Matagalpa and his predecessor Sadiel Antonio Eugarrios Cano. The other accusations were against the deacon Raul Antonio Vegathe seminarians Darvin Leiva Mendoza Y Melkin Ryeas well as the photojournalist Serge Chain Flowers.
Although he does not have access to the file, the lawyer considered that the imputed crimes are “undermining national integrity”, where the State is placed as a victim. “They are crimes of public order in which, in some way, the constitutional order and the stability of the country are being altered —in quotes— that has been part of the discourse they have handled. It is a crime that is easy to fabricate, due to the way in which they have been acting in this last phase of judicial repression, which began this year.”
The clandestine hearing to which he refers is a merely informative procedure in which they are made aware of what they are accused of, and what their rights are, in addition to ‘guaranteeing’ the right to defense. The facts imputed to them are defined, and the case is referred to a second hearing, where they provide the means of evidence —or at least they propose them— with which the trial will continue.
Priests kidnapped, or unjustly convicted
About the “house for jail”, which was imposed in fact on the Matagalpa bishop, Morazán stressed that “the most important thing is to be clear that he is under the figure of kidnapping”, because no legal figure allowed by Nicaraguan legislation was applied to him. Monsignor Alvarezhe has been kidnapped since the fourth of august, and the fact that they have changed his department does not change the fact that this crime continues to be committed against him”, in which the underlying reasons are not known, there is no formal accusation, no complaint, no procedure that validates that deprivation of freedom. “We are facing a kidnapping,” he reiterated.
The situation of the priests, seminarians and lay people who were with him is not so different, recalling that “they were transferred to Managua claiming that they were being taken to do errands. To date, we have seen that this ‘diligence’ is a formal accusation that has materialized long after the situation in which they were almost in forced disappearance or kidnapping. This further aggravates the situation, but at least there is already a file number where relatives can join forces in the same direction, unlike Monsignor Rolando Álvarez, who is in a legal limbo”, he specified.
In the case of Monsignor Leonardo Urbina, who was already sentenced by the dictatorship, Morazán recounted how Judge Edén Aguilar “issued a resolution in which, first of all, no reference is made to the seven writs requesting the intervention of the law, which had presented the relatives naming a trusted lawyer”.
The next thing the priest’s family did, seeing that they were not allowed to appoint a defense attorney, was “independently file an appeal, signed by Monsignor Leonardo Urbina’s father,” but the judge’s decision did not admit the appeal. , because he says that this person does not have the legal capacity to act within that trial, although he did admit an appeal in which they maintain the former assistant of the judge and also the defender imposed by the judge.
The next thing is to send the file to the Court of Appeals so that it knows the merits of the case, because in this phase, the judge only has to check if it meets the formal requirements, and send the file to a superior, he explained.
