The Directorate of Migration and Immigration (DGME) of Nicaragua nationalized this Monday, June 27, two more children of Ebal Diaz Lupian, former secretary of the Presidency of Juan Orlando Hernández. The former Honduran official is being investigated for corruption in his country and has been protected by the regime of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo.
According to a resolution published Monday in the newspaper La Gacetathe beneficiaries were the brothers AJDR and JEDR, aged 15 and 12 respectively, who were granted nationality by “extension”, after the express procedure through which their parents and a sister also obtained it on June 17.
Regimental Commander Pablo Morales Luna, deputy director of the DGME, signs the resolution that, as a curious fact, cites the parents of the minors and identifies them as Nicaraguans, even mentioning their identity card numbers.
The official document indicates that Ebal Díaz identifies himself through ID number 777-231273-1000G, while his wife Jahel Rivera Pantoja does so with 777-080578-100OB.
Under the Nicaraguan constitutional norm that prevents the extradition of nationals, by delivering the nationalizations, the Ortega regime protects Díaz, his family circle made up of his wife, his daughter Salma Jahdai Díaz Rivera and the two minors.
According to migratory data from Honduras, the former Honduran official entered Nicaragua last February, four months before he was naturalized and in the case of his wife and daughter they did so a week before, which showed that they did not meet the requirements established in local legislation to qualify for nationality.
Arguments of the regime
Because they are Central Americans, according to the Nicaraguan Migration Law, they had to prove a two-year permanent residence in the country. In the Migration resolution, however, the number of years they have been residing on Nicaraguan soil is not specified, where they arrived this year, after the Government of Nicaragua handed over power last January. Hernandezsubsequently extradited to the United States.
In addition to Díaz and his family, the DGME gave the nationality to the former private secretary of the former Honduran president, Ricardo Cardona, his wife Claudia Mercedes Matute and his son José Ricardo Cardona Matute.
This is the latest scandal of the Nicaraguan dictatorship, accused in the past of protecting other high-ranking Central American officials, investigated in their countries for acts of corruption such as the former Salvadoran presidents Mauricio Funes and Salvador Sánchez Cerén.
A recent investigation of CONFIDENTIAL showed that the DGME is usually docile with Ortega’s allies at the international level, but does not renew the passports of opponents and citizens in general, banishes opponentswhich has had a very high cost for exiles from the 2018 repression as demonstrated by the journalistic series published by this medium last May.
In recent days, Honduran Foreign Minister Eduardo Enrique Reina denied that his country’s government had anything to do with the nationalizations, while the voices of academics questioned the measures taken by Ortega that turned Nicaragua into a refuge for corrupt people without distinction of ideology. .
“The expectations of fighting corruption are diluted in Central America, to the internal obstacles produced by States co-opted by corruption networks, external obstacles are added. Politicians and officials are finding a place to take refuge in Nicaragua,” lamented the former rector of the National University of Honduras, Julieta Castellanos.
