The owner of Thirteenth Trial Court, Ulisa Yahoska Tapia Silva, declared guilty this Friday, July 15, the political prisoner Yubrank Suazo, for the alleged crimes of “conspiracy to undermine” and “propagation of false news”, in a political trial carried out in the Directorate of Judicial Assistance, El Chipote .
The Prosecutor’s Office requested a sentence of ten years in prison for both crimes – five years for each one – for the also member of the Civic Alliance for Justice and Democracy, who was arrested on May 18 in Masaya, and transferred secretly, on June 30, from El Chipote to the Jorge Navarro Penitentiary System, La Modelo, confirmed the Nicaraguan Center for Human Rights (Cenidh).
His father, Wilfredo Suazo, entered the hearing and managed to talk with him for about ten minutes, after almost two months of total incommunicado detention.
The Prosecutor’s Office presented two witnesses, both from the DAJ. The documentary evidence included the arrest record, the occupation record, and a police arrest warrant. In addition, they showed an open information mining report on social media, explained defense attorney Mynor Curtis.
Among the data found on the Internet, the Public Ministry included retweets and three videos that Suazo shared on his social networks, one of them an interview from the Article 66 platform to the priest Harving Padilla, during the days he was under police siege in the San Juan church. Juan Bautista, in Masaya.
They also cited a video from 100% Noticias, in which Suazo pointed out that the release of political prisoners in 2019 was not thanks to the Amnesty Law —made to measure by the Ortega regime—, but as a result of international pressure, he shared his lawyer, who managed to talk with his client for about five minutes.
According to Curtis, during his intervention in the trial, Suazo asserted that the accusations were false and that he had done nothing, since all he did was raise his voice in favor of the Church —he denounced the siege that the priest Padilla experienced in Masaya- “The people who attack the Church are not going to prevail, because Jesus Christ said so,” said the political prisoner.
sanctioned judge
Judge Tapia Silva was sanctioned this Friday by the United States along with 22 other judges and prosecutors faithful to the Ortega regimemarked by sundermining democratic processes or institutions, significant corruption and obstruction of investigations into acts of corruption.
The court has also sentenced the activists Yasser Ford Y Yader Parakhon; the former chancellor Francisco Aguirre Sacasa; the opposition leader Suyen Barahona; the peasant leader Freddy Navas; lawyer and human rights defender Mary Oviedo; former presidential candidate Noel Vidaure; and the political commentator Jaime Arellano. Suazo’s sentence reading will be on Wednesday, July 27.
The sanctions that reached the court include the revocation or prohibition of the US visa and the impediment of entry or admission to the US and are based on the Law to Strengthen Nicaragua’s Adherence to the Conditions for Electoral Reform, known as Rebirth Law.
second time caught
Suazo is the most recent political prisoner of the Ortega regime, after a wave of arrests carried out in the context of the general votes in 2021. He is also the first prisoner of conscience of some twenty political prisoners imprisoned in El Chipote to have been transferred to the System Penitentiary and subjected to punishment cell 300, known as “El Infiernillo”.
In 2018, the opponent was imprisoned for the first time and accused of allegedly committing acts of terrorism, attempted murder, threats with weapons and obstruction of public services. In June 2019 he was released along with other political prisoners under the controversial Amnesty Law created by Ortega.
Currently, 180 political prisoners remain in different prisons in the country, of these, 28 are in El Chipote, where they are in complete isolation, they are subjected to starvation due to the scant portions of food they are given, they do not have the right to regular visits and neither do they to recreational activities.
This group of inmates —former presidential candidates, social, student, civic leaders, journalists and lawyers— are part of 61 people who were captured in 2021 and sentenced to between seven and thirteen years in prison from February to May 2022.
