The leader and member of the Peasant Movement Sergio Aryuren Mena Amador, Originally from Juigalpa, Chontales, he is one of the political prisoners whom the Daniel Ortega dictatorship did not release. He is being held captive in the Jorge Navarro Penitentiary System, known as “La Modelo”, in Tipitapa.
The young man is the brother of the former politician and exile Friedrich Mena Amador, released in 2019, with the controversial Amnesty Law; He is also the nephew of the peasant leader Pedro Mena, exiled to the United States on February 9, along with 222 other opponents.
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Sources revealed on condition of anonymity to Article 66 that the 38-year-old opponent was in exile for more than a year in Costa Rica, due to the persecution, siege and death threats against him, however he returned to Nicaragua at the beginning of 2022 and on April 19 he was kidnapped by the Police after having made some purchases at the Metrocentro Shopping Center in Managua.
“After he came to Nicaragua, Sergio -Mena- tried to continue with his life, but he was not where he lived, but rather he changed places because the Police continued to harass him and watch the house of his relatives, but it was enough that he travel to Managua to run some errands so that paramilitaries could follow him; When he was going to get into his vehicle, the police arrived and violently detained him and then accused him of drug possession, “said a source close to the political prisoner.
Another informant pointed to a supposed friend of Mena Amador, named Chester Hernandez Penaof being the “Police informant” and who, in collusion with the officers, put the drug in the back seat of the car.
«When Mena got into the car, the supposed drug was next to the shopping bag of the supposed friend who had requested a raid to go shopping at the same Metrocentro, other girls who were in the same car said that these things belonged to the friend, but the boy did not return to the car because he was supposedly going to throw away garbage,” added the source.
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After a process described as arbitrary, where the witnesses against the peasant leader were between five to six policemen, the justice at the service of the regime sentenced Daniel Ortega to seven years in prison.
Regarding the witnesses in favor of the political prisoner, a person close to the opponent assured that only one young woman could testify, because the other person was “intimidated by a police officer who took her number at the time of the capture and intimidated her so that she would not arrive. the trial.”
They ask to be included in the list of political prisoners
This coming April 19, Sergio Mena will serve a year in prison for a crime that his relatives say he never committed. Photos provided to this media outlet show the young man in different acts of protests against the Nicaraguan regime in 2018.
His family demands his immediate release because they assure and ask that he be included in the list of political prisoners whom Daniel Ortega refuses to release. “At first, Sergio’s family was afraid to include him on the list of political prisoners for the reprisals that the Police always do and for fear that they would give him more years of sentence, but the truth is that this is a boy who for having raised his The voice against the government is now in prison and was the victim of attacks and torture from the beginning,” said an informant.
Human rights defense attorney Yonarqui Martinez He explained that due to the threats that the Nicaraguan dictatorship makes to the relatives of political prisoners, many have decided to remain silent to protect their lives, “but as the months go by, cases of innocent people who were accused of crimes will continue to emerge. common for the simple fact of being opponents.
“The modality to accuse opponents remains the same, putting drugs, weapons and other serious crimes to prevent them from leaving,” the lawyer stressed.
To date, the Ortega justice system keeps more than 30 political prisoners behind bars, including Monsignor Rolando Alvarez, Bishop of the Diocese of Matagalpa, sentenced to 26 years in prison plus the loss of his nationality for the alleged crime of conspiring against the homeland.
