The Ortega justice system organized for the second consecutive day a series of supposed “informational hearings” to exhibit ten other political prisoners detained in the Directorate of Judicial Assistance, known as El Chipote, among them businessmen and civil society leaders. Also, of the four political prisoners which, for more than 14 months, has been kept isolated and in solitary confinement.
The regime of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo showed for the first time, after more than a year of confinement in El Chipote, businessmen Juan Lorenzo Holmann, general manager of La Prensa; Luis Rivas Anduray, former general manager of Banpro; Álvaro Vargas, vice president of the Superior Council of Private Enterprise (Cosep); the sociologist and economist, Irving Larios; and the lawyer Róger Reyes, a member of the Blue and White National Unit (UNAB).
In addition, for the second time in two months, they showed the opponent Félix Maradiaga, one of the seven presidential candidates detained by the regime between May and July 2021.
As on the day before, when they exhibited a first group of ten imprisoned opponents, the presentation was made through the official press and the media with a Sandinista profile, which took photographs and videos during a visit by the convicts to the Complex. Judiciary of Managua.
In the images, it was possible to observe the unfounded political prisoners in the blue prison clothes, with physical appearances similar to those previously described by their relatives, that is, underweight and emaciated.
The relatives had denounced that the authorities reduced food rations in recent months, which caused them “more malnutrition and extreme weight loss.”
Similar to what happened on Tuesday, the Ortega justice argued for holding an “informative hearing” to justify the transfer from El Chipote to the Managua Courts. Lawyers and human rights defenders warned that the Criminal Procedure Code (CPP) of Nicaragua does not contemplate the legal figure of “informative hearings”so its convening and carrying out is “illegal” and pursues “political” ends.
Luis Rivas Anduray
Rivas Anduray was presented before room two of the Court of Appeals of Managua (TAM), in charge of Judge Noel Pereira, who according to official media, assured that they are waiting for the response of grievances by the Public Ministry to process the appeal.
The businessman was sentenced in February to 13 years in prison for the alleged commission of three crimes: “undermining national integrity”, “illegal possession of firearms”, and a third that is unknown.
He was captured on June 15, 2021 and, since then, he has been kept incommunicado in the cells of El Chipote. He was the first businessman imprisoned by the Ortega regime. According to researcher Manuel Orozco in an interview in Esta Semana, Rivas’s “sin” was having a direct link with big Nicaraguan capital and Daniel Ortega’s regime.
John Lawrence Holman
The general manager of La Prensa, Holmann, was sentenced to nine years in prison for alleged money laundering by the justice of the Ortega regime. This Tuesday, Nadia Camila Tardencilla Rodríguez, head of the Second Criminal District Court of Managua, appeared before the same judge who found him guilty and sentenced on March 31, who told him that “the referral of the case to designate the criminal chamber that will know of it”, after his lawyer filed an appeal.
Holmann was tricked into El Chipote, after on August 13, 2021, the Police raided the facilities of the newspaper La Prensa and asked him to accompany them for paperwork. Since that date he had not been seen publicly until this Wednesday, a week after the regime consummated the confiscation of the newspaper buildingin which he installed the “José Coronel Urtecho” Cultural and Polytechnic Center, under the administration of the National Technological Institute (Inatec).
His extreme thinness and paleness confirm the complaints of his relatives, who on several occasions denounced the delicate health situation in which he was.
Alvaro Vargas
Álvaro Vargas was presented this Wednesday before the Fourth Criminal District Judge in Managua, Ángel Fernández, who assured that they are analyzing the appeal filed by his defense.
The former vice president of Cosep was captured on Thursday, October 21, 2021. The livestock producer, who had also been president of the Union of Agricultural Producers of Nicaragua (Upanic), is serving a nine-year prison sentence.
Irving Larios
Larios was found guilty by the Ortega justice for the alleged crimes of “conspiring to undermine national integrity” and “propagation of false news,” on February 28 and was sentenced to 13 years in prison by the Tenth Criminal District Judge. of Trial, Nancy Aguirre Gudiel, who this Wednesday said that the defense filed an appeal but in an untimely manner.
Roger Reyes Barrera
Lawyer Reyes, sentenced to ten years in prison by the Ortega justice system for alleged conspiracy to undermine, was informed by the Fifth Criminal District Judge, Félix Ernesto Salmerón, that his appeal was filed outside the statutory time.
Reyes, also a member of the Political Council of the Blue and White National Unity (UNAB), has presented several physical and psychological ailments in prison. He has suffered from depression, stress, severe headaches, been in isolation and on a hunger strike to demand mental health care.
Felix Maradiaga
This is the second time that the Daniel Ortega regime presents the political prisoner and former presidential candidate Félix Maradiaga, sentenced to 13 years in prison. The first was on July 2, after the demands of his wife, Bertha Valle, to confirm his health status after 389 days in prison and isolation.
On that occasion, magistrate Octavio Rothschuh, president of courtroom one of the Managua Court of Appeals (TAM) read a sentence ratifying the sentence. This time, the same magistrate, a record of Ortega, said that they await the response of the Public Ministry so that the case is elevated to the Supreme Court of Justice.
The judicial authorities forced the prisoners of conscience to sign acts of proof that they were informed about the status of their respective judicial processes; an “illegal” act according to lawyers consulted because said hearings are not contemplated in the Code of Criminal Procedure and, furthermore, they were held in the absence of their lawyers.
*With information from Eph.
