259 days ago, on June 21, 2022, Martha Candelaria Rivas Hernández, the only political prisoner of the dictatorship of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo, was arrested for allegedly giving false testimony.
The woman refused to testify against Father Manuel Salvador García, parish priest of the Jesús de Nazareno church, in Nandaime. The justice of the regime tried to get Martha Candelaria to accuse the priest of having attacked her with a lock on her face in May of that same year.
At first, she declared to a digital platform that the Nandaime priest hit her with a padlock after a discussion they had on the night of May 30 at the Jesús de Nazareno Church, which is presided over by the religious. However, days later she retracted and said that it was all an “accident”, which is why she did not sign the complaint.
Related news: Justice of Ortega finds Martha Rivas guilty for denying that a Nandaime priest assaulted her
According to the Mechanism for the Recognition of Political Prisoners, Rivas Hernández is a single mother of two minors and was arrested, tried and sentenced for political reasons.
«In a video broadcast by official media in which Martha is clearly uncomfortable and questioned by interviewers, she explicitly mentions that her blows were the result of an accident when Father Manuel opened a gate. She was unjustly accused for false testimony against the State of Nicaragua », explains the organization.
One of the key witnesses used by the Prosecutor’s Office to accuse the woman of the alleged crime of false testimony was her ex-husband. The man declared that the blows that his ex-partner presented were provoked by the priest, which is why Rivas Hernández was allegedly lying in his testimony.
The Ortega justice sentenced the woman to five years in prison. She is currently confined in the National Penitentiary System (SPN) of Granada.
