The justice of the Ortega regime found seven political prisoners guilty: Juan Sebastián Chamorro, Arturo Cruz, Tamara Dávila, Violeta Granera, José Pallais, Félix Maradiaga and José Adán Aguerri, in a trial that lasted seven days, with daily hearings of between five to 12 hours. Ortega Judge Félix Ernesto Salmerón Moreno, of the Fifth Criminal District Court of Judgment, ruled against the defendants for the alleged crime of “conspiracy to undermine national integrity to the detriment of the State of Nicaragua and society.”
The Prosecutor’s Office requested 13 years in prison for Chamorro, Pallais, Maradiaga and Aguerri; nine years for Cruz; and eight years for Granera and Dávila. The Public Ministry also demanded the disqualification from public office for all those accused in the trial held at the Directorate of Judicial Assistance, known as El Chipote.
Since the political trials began four weeks ago, this is the only case in which seven political prisoners have been involved in the same case.
During the first five trial hearings, the Prosecutor’s Office questioned 26 police officers, who participated in the arrests and raids on the homes of political prisoners. This Tuesday, the Prosecutor’s Office finished presenting its evidence, which included the information extracted by the computer experts from the equipment seized from the accused, which was not presented by them, but by a supervisor.
whatsapp group
In addition to publications related to the accused in unreliable digital media. According to the defense attorney, Mynor Curtis, in the specific case of Chamorro, the Prosecutor’s Office highlighted a WhatsApp group in which several of those involved participated; including Inter-American Dialogue investigator Manuel Orozco, who is being tried in absentia.
The conversations in the group were based on comments about the situation in the country. In the videos that Chamorro came out with: “he commented on a sanction, but he did not ask for it. They did not take any video that asks for sanction. Asking for a sanction does not constitute that crime either. It is not the case. He never asked for sanctions ”, clarified Curtis, who has been able to talk with his defendant for two minutes per hearing; that is, twelve minutes in six trial days. A total violation of the right to defense, questions the lawyer.
“In themselves, they have not presented evidence that constitutes the crime of impairment, they have presented evidence that there is a political position of the boys, but not evidence of commission of the crime of impairment. There is also no information about money laundering, there is no information, nothing,” he pointed out.
In the indictment filed in September 2021, against Manuel Orozco, based in the United States, the Prosecutor’s Office identified him as the “Leader” of a “conspiracy” against Nicaragua.
“Since 2009, the defendant Manuel Orozco has been linked to the financing of destabilizing campaigns, through a network of links to political organizations and the media, with which he has been manipulating and pressing to remove the Government of Nicaragua with violent methods. ”, assured the auxiliary prosecutor of Managua, Heydi Estela Ramírez Olivas in the letter.
The accusation points to Orozco as the organizer of a WhatsApp group called “task force”, in which Pallais, Maradiaga, Granera, Chamorro, Aguerri and other detainees such as students Max Jerez and Lesther Alemán participated. It also included the former president of the businessmen and now a political prisoner, Michael Healy, Salvador Stadthagen and the director of CONFIDENTIAL, Carlos Fernando Chamorro, the latter a victim of the regime’s repression and currently in exile.
Orozco has repeatedly rejected the regime’s accusations. In an interview given to This week, Two days before the trial began, he explained that the entire case revolves around a commission created by the Inter-American Dialogue organization in 2018, on mediation and policies related to the Nicaraguan crisis.
The purpose of the commission was to serve as an international link with a series of external actors, predominantly the OAS member states, with the sole purpose of promoting mediation of the political conflict.
“There is no evidence that there is harm to the State because a conversation about electoral reform is not binding with the threat against the State. I am the administrator of all the material; in fact, it is accessible on the Internet because it is open to the public. And at no time is there talk of an attempt to overthrow a State, or anything like that, simply, the Government wants to fabricate the idea that there was an attempted coup (…)”, Orozco clarified.
Tdegrading moments
Since the trial began against the seven prisoners of conscience, the Police allowed the participation of a family member as a political prisoner in the hearings. They had to be in El Chipote at 7:30 am, they were reviewed and transferred together with the defense attorneys in a minibus to an auditorium converted into a court.
They made them wait under an awning, from where they watched the parade of their relatives: all dressed in prison uniform, they walked with their heads down, handcuffed with bridles holding a bottle of water, and with guards. Once they entered they could pass, confirmed CONFIDENTIAL.
“It has been a circus, they have not been able to prove absolutely anything,” said a source close to relatives of prisoners of conscience.
Lunch time was the only time when the political prisoners talked for about ten minutes with their families. In some cases, it was even shorter. Although the condition of the seven political prisoners is “alarming”, the health situation of prisoners Pallais and Cruz is the most urgent. “They are wrong,” said a relative on condition of anonymity.
“You see him walk — Pallais — and you see that he is a sick man, there is no way, they almost grabbed him,” said a relative, who added that after noon, they came to take his blood pressure and glucose.
After Pallais decompensated in the trial and Cruz showed “signs or symptoms associated with Parkinson’s disease”, the Public Ministry transferred them both together with the former diplomat, Francisco Aguirre Sacasa to their homes, under house arrest.
The Nicaraguan Center for Human Rights (Cenidh) condemned the “degrading treatment” against Pallais and Cruz, that every day since they are in their homes, the Police take them to El Chipote, put them in a cell, handcuffed, and forced to wear prison uniform.
“At the end of the hearing, they are taken back to their cells, where they put on the clothes they were wearing. The Cenidh asks: Is there a need to make them go through all that? Take their clothes off and put them on? Cuff them? No. They are degrading treatment”They reported on their Twitter account.
