The Nicaraguan justice handed down an eight-year prison sentence on Monday for the former presidential candidate Cristiana Chamorro, the main opponent who rebounded in the polls as the favorite for last year’s general elections, in which Daniel Ortega ended up winning a new mandate.
Chamorro, 68, the daughter of former Nicaraguan president Violeta Barrios de Chamorro, who defeated Ortega at the polls in 1990, was found guilty of crimes related to money laundering.
The opponent will remain under house arrest, a regime to which she has been subjected since his arrest in Juneas reported by the Nicaraguan Center for Human Rights (Cenidh).
Along with Cristiana, her brother, a former legislator, Pedro Joaquín Chamorro and other members of the Violeta Barrios de Chamorro Foundation, were also convicted, with sentences ranging from 7 to 13 years in prison.
For his part, before the sentence was known, Carlos Chamorro, also the brother of the opponent and the former legislator, wrote on his Twitter account that his brothers “proclaim their innocence in the few minutes they had to speak before the assassins executing the sentence of guilt against him.”
Cristina was arrested last year, as were seven possible rivals of Ortega who have also received convictions for crimes of treason against the country.
The arrest warrant was issued for the alleged crimes of abusive management and ideological falsehood in real competition with the crime of money laundering, to the detriment of the State of Nicaragua, through the Violeta Barrios Foundation.
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