The International Criminal Police Organization (Interpol) must be very careful with the “red notice” signings made by the dictatorship of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo because, in its desire to persecute opponents, it could try to take advantage of the organization and take over. hair in the information for the signing of wanted people, to persecute Nicaraguans for political reasons, opposition leaders warned.
Recently, the US Government, in its report on the human rights situation in Nicaragua, warned that the Nicaraguan Police, at the service of the Ortega-Murillo regime, had tried to manipulate the objectives of Interpol and take advantage of that organization. to persecute dissident refugees abroad.
The warning has generated alarm and concern among the Nicaraguan exile who ask the governments of the countries where there are exiles, that, although the Ortega Police make requests for the extradition of opponents through Interpol, they do not collaborate with the dictatorship, as already would have happened with the Government of Costa Rica, which handed over to the Nicaraguan Douglas Gamaliel Pérez Centeno, an opponent of the dictatorship.
The concern of the Nicaraguan exile is based on the fact that, according to the statutes of Interpol, this organization “cannot force the authorities in charge of law enforcement, of any country, to detain a person subject to a red notice.” That is, for the capture and extradition of a person circulated in the International Police to occur, there must be the will of the country where the person resides.
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This makes it clear that Costa Rica could have refused to hand over the Nicaraguan opponent, especially since Interpol’s own statutes prohibit using its collaboration network for politically motivated persecution.
On the other hand, the Ortega dictatorship ignored a red notice issued by Interpol against the Iranian Mohsen Rezai, wanted for a deadly explosive attack in the ANIA, in Argentina. The circulated man was received as a guest of honor in Managua, despite being persecuted by the International Police.
For the opposition leader and former political area exiled by Ortega and Murillo, guerrilla commander Dora María Téllez, the Nicaraguan dictatorship intends to use all the means at its disposal, including the manipulation of Interpol, for the persecution of Nicaraguan political exiles, and that would make the police organization as an instrument of the regime for “transnational political repression.”
Téllez warns Interpol that the Nicaraguan dictatorship intends to do with that organization the same thing it has done with the National Police, which is to “convert an instrument that should be for citizen security into an instrument of persecution of citizens.”
He added that Interpol itself must be careful with the notifications made by the Nicaraguan regime to “avoid being manipulated.”
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The opposition leader criticized the double standards of the Ortega-Murillo family, who, while giving asylum and citizenship to foreign citizens who have participated or are being sentenced in their countries for common crimes, insist that Interpol collaborate to persecute opponents.
“There is Mauricio Funes, who has been persecuted in El Salvador, convicted of corruption and who has ended up being, not only an official of the Ortega-Murillo regime, but a Nicaraguan citizen through the grace of the Ortega family,” Téllez recalled.
He also pointed out the case of the other former president of El Salvador, Salvador Sánchez Cerén, a fugitive from the justice of his country but who lives freely in Nicaragua protected by Ortega, or the case of former Panamanian president Ricardo Martinelli, also convicted of common crimes and protected by the Managua dictatorship.
Interpol activates its “filters” in case of requests from Ortega
Interpol uses “Red Notices” to search for and arrest internationally wanted people. Its headquarters are in France and it has offices in several countries. It is a central axis for global police cooperation.
In the case of Nicaragua, the Ortega-Murillo dictatorship has already tried to “trick” the organization, and an example of the manipulation attempts is what happened with the opponent Félix Maradiaga, whom the Ortega Police tried to circulate in the International police.
In 2018, the Police at the service of the dictatorship tried to use Interpol to issue a “red alert” for drug trafficking and terrorism, which sought to discredit and detain Maradiaga on fabricated charges, according to the opponent himself. “In my case, Interpol’s review mechanisms fortunately worked correctly,” he added.
Interpol has a data filtering system to prevent abuse of its network, especially to avoid being manipulated by authoritarian regimes that seek to persecute political opponents under the guise of common crimes.
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«When Nicaragua requested a red notice against me, Interpol evaluated the request through its File Control Commission (CCF), a body that reviews requests to ensure that they are not requests with political, racial, military or religious motivations. Thanks to these filters, the request was rejected, recognizing the political nature of my case,” the opponent said.
The former Nicaraguan political inmate pointed out that the experience that occurred in his case should be a reminder that “there is still much to do to ensure that Interpol is not used as a tool of political repression.”
How does Interpol work?
He official website of the organization notes that Article 83 of the INTERPOL Data Processing Regulations stipulates the conditions for the publication of red notices. These can only be published if the act in question constitutes a serious crime under common law.
The operation, organized by INTERPOL, focuses on serious cases such as fugitives wanted for crimes of murder, sexual abuse of minors, human trafficking, fraud, corruption, drug smuggling, environmental crimes and money laundering.
Likewise, it establishes that, due to the politically neutral role it must play, the Interpol constitution prohibits in its article 3 “any type of relationship with political, military, racial and religious crimes.”
