The Ortega justice sentenced the political prisoner, Yubrank Suazo, to 10 years in prison and a fine of 56,456 cordobas for the alleged crimes of “conspiracy to undermine” and “propagation of false news”, according to the reading of the sentence made this Wednesday July 27, at the Judicial Assistance Directorate (DAJ), El Chipote, confirmed his defense attorney, Mynor Curtis.
Suazo was found guilty of allegedly committing these crimes by the owner of the Thirteenth Trial Court, Ulisa Yahoska Tapia Silva, last Friday, July 15, in a political trial, in which the Prosecutor’s Office presented two witnesses, both DAJ police officers.
The documentary evidence included the arrest record, the occupation record, and a police arrest warrant. In addition, they showed an open information extraction report on social networks, lawyer Curtis explained on that occasion. 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 moved up the family interview
The Jorge Navarro National Penitentiary System, known as La Modelo, brought forward Suazo’s family appointment, scheduled for this Wednesday, July 27, since it coincided with his sentence reading. Wilfredo Suazo, father of the also opponent, confirmed that his mother and sister managed to see the member of the Civic Alliance for Justice and Democracy, this Tuesday, July 26, after almost three months of incommunicado detention since his arrest, on May 18, in Masaya.
His father was not able to enter this first visit because they only accept two people. He had the opportunity to exchange about ten minutes with his son during the trial hearing. Suazo reports that the opponent is fine, that he sent a message of strength to the family, that they stay healthy, and that they pray for him.
He described the meeting as “very emotional, family-oriented”, focused on finding out more about his relatives and friends. His father added that they saw him a little thinner, but he considers that it is “natural”, as part of the conditions of a prisoner. “The very affliction makes one thin,” he said. He stressed that in the prison they receive the medicines and supply them.
Suazo remains in a maximum security cell. Daily he is visited by a doctor from the Penitentiary System who takes his blood pressure and administers a pill. The food, as the political prisoner described to his lawyer at the trial hearing, is worse than that received in El Chipote.
The opponent was secretly transferred, on June 30, from El Chipote to the Jorge Navarro Penitentiary System, La Modelo, confirmed the Nicaraguan Center for Human Rights (Cenidh).
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, frustrated 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, more than 180 political prisoners remain in different prisons in the country, of these, 28 are in El Chipote, where several areas 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 periodic visits and neither to recreational activities.
This group of inmates —former candidates for the presidency, 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 for a battery of judicial loyal to Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo.
