Roberto Larios Melendezspokesman and general director of the Communication area of the Supreme Court of Justice (CSJ), was arrested by the National Police, confirmed sources linked to the Judiciary.
Supreme Court workers revealed that police agents arrived at the CSJ headquarters on Friday and searched Larios’s office. Later, during the night they captured him at his home and transferred to the Directorate of Judicial Assistance, known as El Chipote.
So far the official reasons for the arrest are unknown.
The journalist and lawyer has worked in the Judiciary since 1996. He previously worked as a reporter for the judicial source for the defunct newspaper Barricada, owned by the Sandinista Front.
In 2010, the General Directorate of Communication of the CSJ took over, which was created that same year to “articulate all the Press and Public Relations offices of the Judicial Branch under a single leadership,” according to the Court’s website.
The official is considered “faithful” and “close” to the hard-line FSLN secretariat in El Carmen, and frequently participates in party activities. He has censored and attacked journalists and independent media for publishing information critical of the Supreme Court’s subordination to the ruling party.
Larios uses his social networks to show his loyalty to the FSLN and defend the regime. In a post on Facebook, on November 12, 2021, the spokesperson asked: “SANCTIONS ON ME? Hahahahahahahaha, we’ll eat corn… if God and the Virgin are with us, who said fear?”. The publication came days before the Treasury Department of The United States will sanction nine high-ranking officials of the dictatorship and to the Public Ministry, after the electoral farce in which Ortega and Murillo were re-elected.
On July 19, 2019, he published a photo with the press team of the courts in which they celebrated the anniversary of the revolution. The image was accompanied by a text that read: “Today, like 40 years ago, the Sandinistas entered Managua victoriously, from all the guerrilla fronts; I thank God for having granted me the privilege of being here… Courage brothers! We beat the coup! To our principles, always loyal, never traitors!”
Third CSJ official falls in two weeks
The fall of the veteran official is the third in the last two weeks, presumably on the orders of the FSLN Secretariat.
This Thursday CONFIDENTIAL published the dismissal “by superior orders” of Katia Jaentschke Acevedo Y Ruth Tapia Roadirector of international relations and Protocol of the CSJ, respectively.
Katia Jaentschke is the daughter of the former Vice Chancellor Valdrack Jaentschke Whitakerpolitical operator of the regime and current “minister counselor” at the embassy in Costa Rica.
Tapia has a long history in the Ortega Murillo government as secretary of the Ministry of Defense (2007-2012), ambassador to France, and spent three months as a representative before the Organization of American States (OAS).
Both officials were fired at the beginning of October, and the orders came directly from El Carmen, where the presidential office and the FSLN secretariat are located, headed by Néstor Moncada Lau.
CONFIDENTIAL published this Tuesday an interview with “Sergio”, an official with more than a decade in the Judiciary, who expressed the “fed up” that exists among public servants with the system of political surveillance to which they are subjected by the FSLN.
According to his account, the main executors of this iron control are the magistrates, judges and trade unionists, who are not exempt from the new prohibitions: traveling outside the country or attending masses and processions of the Catholic Church.
