The regime of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo appointed the retired general commissioner, Horacio Rocha López, as advisor on Security Affairs to the president, according to the presidential agreement 164-2022 published in La Gaceta This Friday, November 11.
Rocha came to hold the position of deputy general director of the Police, until he was sent to retire in 2014. In 2015 he was appointed by the Ortega regime as consul general of Nicaragua in South Korea, at the same time that his wife Ana Isabel Argüello Yrigoyen was appointed as ambassador to this same Asian country. Both diplomatic appointments were canceled in 2016.
After this diplomatic post, the retired commissioner general stepped out of the public sphere. However, in 2019, Rocha made a brief comeback when he was decorated as part of the celebrations for the 40th anniversary of the National Police, for being one of its founding members.
Interviewed by Police Visiona propaganda program of the regime’s Police, Rocha expressed his pride at having contributed to the formation of a “solid, strong, close to citizens, supportive, fighter and worker for peace” Police.
The Police is the main repressive organ of the dictatorship, accused of being responsible for human rights violations during their joint operations with paramilitaries to suppress the citizen protests that have taken place throughout the country since April 2018. Because of this, was sanctioned by the United States Department of the Treasury.
Rocha was seen as an official faithful to former President Arnoldo Alemán (1997-2001), whose head of personal security he was, until he was placed in this same position, but with the responsibility of guarding the dictator Daniel Ortega.
Rocha, 62, is an economist and brother of the late former president of the Nicaraguan Soccer Federation (Fenifut), Julius Rock, arrested at the end of May 2015 in Switzerland, along with six FIFA executives, accused of participating in a structure of corruption and bribery of the organization.
