-The Nicaraguan Prosecutor’s Office requested a term of up to 90 days in prison to expand an investigation against the priest Óscar Danilo Benavidez Dávila, detained since last Sunday for a case not yet specified, the Judiciary reported Thursday.
Nicaraguan society and the State of Nicaragua are considered the “victims/offended” by the 49-year-old priest, who is detained as “investigated”, although the judicial file, to which Efe had access, does not specify the alleged crime that is investigated to the religious.
The prosecutor in the case, Manuel de Jesús Rugama Peña, presented the request to extend the term for the complementary investigation and judicial detention during a special hearing for protection of constitutional guarantees, which is currently being processed.
The head of the Tenth Criminal District Court of the Managua Circumscription, Gloria María Saavedra Corrales, who is in charge of the case, has not yet ruled.
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Priest Benavidez, pastor of the Espiritu Santo parish, in the municipality of Mulukuku, in the North Caribbean Autonomous Region of Nicaragua, was arrested last Sunday afternoon, reported the Diocese of Siuna, to which he belongs, and said he was unaware. the causes or reasons for the arrest of the priest.
The Nicaraguan Center for Human Rights (Cenidh) reported the next day that the priest “was taken from his vehicle and taken in a (police) patrol to an unknown destination” and then appeared in the prison known as “El Chipote”, in Managua, Headquarters of the Directorate of Judicial Assistance of the National Police.
The cleric’s complaint came amid tensions between the government of President Daniel Ortega and the Nicaraguan Catholic Church.
THREE PRIESTS IN PRISON AND SIX HELD
Benavidez is the third priest arrested so far this year in Nicaragua, and the ninth in police custody, including Bishop Rolando Álvarez and five other priests who have been locked up since August 4 in the Episcopal Palace of the Diocese. from Matagalpa (north).
Siuna was the first diocese to publicly support Álvarez, whom the National Police accuses of trying to “organize violent groups”, although so far he has not offered evidence.
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The arrest of this priest also occurs in the midst of a series of actions by the Sandinista government against the Nicaraguan Catholic Church, which includes the prohibition of the Archdiocese of Managua from the procession with the pilgrim image of the Virgin of Fatima, and the confinement of the Bishop Álvarez with five priests at the provincial episcopal see of Matagalpa, which is besieged by special police forces.
In addition, the expulsion of a group of missionaries from the Mother Teresa of Calcutta order, the closure of eight Catholic radio stations, the cancellation of the subscription television programming of three Catholic channels and the forced entry and raid of a parish.
President Ortega branded as “terrorists” the Nicaraguan bishops who acted as mediators of a national dialogue that sought a peaceful solution to the crisis that the country has been experiencing since April 2018.
The crisis in Nicaragua was accentuated after the controversial elections last November in which Ortega was re-elected for a fifth term, fourth consecutive and second along with his wife, Rosario Murillo, as vice president, with his main contenders in prison.
Relations between the Sandinistas and the Nicaraguan Catholic Church have been marked by friction and mistrust in the last 43 years.
The Catholic community represents 58.5% of the 6.5 million inhabitants of Nicaragua, according to the latest national census.
