The Inter-American Press Association (IAPA) described this Friday as “crazy madness” the sentence to nine years in prison “for alleged money laundering” against Juan Lorenzo Holmann Chamorro, general manager of the Nicaraguan newspaper La Prensa.
In a statement, the hemispheric organization highlights that the Nicaraguan justice system sentenced Holmann Chamorro on Thursday to nine years in prison “for alleged money laundering, after a three-day trial held behind closed doors.”
“This is one more of the crazy follies of the Ortega-Murillo regime with which, without any shame, it provokes the international community and violates all the principles of due process,” said Jorge Canahuati, president of the IAPA, and Carlos Jornet, president of the organization’s Committee on Freedom of the Press and Information.
Holmann Chamorro, considered a “political prisoner” of the Government of Daniel Ortega by humanitarian organizations, was sentenced this Thursday to nine years in prison and to pay an economic fine, according to the newspaper La Prensa, the oldest in the country.
Judge Nadia Camila Tardencilla Rodríguez, head of the Second Criminal District Court of Managua, also disqualified Holmann Chamorro, who is regional vice president of the IAPA’s Commission on Freedom of the Press and Information for Nicaragua, from exercising his profession, trade or position. while it lasts.
Related news: IAPA “deplores” sentence against Juan Lorenzo Holmann, manager of La Prensa
The journalist has been imprisoned since August 14, 2021, one day after the regime occupied and closed the newspaper’s headquarters in Managua, which is now published digitally.
Before Holmann Chamorro’s conviction, “Orteguist justice” had convicted, “in equally irregular processes,” journalists Miguel Mora and Miguel Mendoza, who are serving prison sentences of 13 and 9 years, respectively, while Cristiana Chamorro and Pedro Joaquín Chamorro, members of the board of directors of La Prensa, were sentenced to 8 and 9 years in prison.
For its next biannual assembly, which will be held between April 19 and 21, and wants to “review” the situation of press freedom in all the countries of the Americas, the IAPA invited relatives of political prisoners to participate, indicates the release.
The IAPA’s Chapultepec Index barometer ranks Nicaragua, along with Venezuela and Cuba, as the countries with a total lack of press freedom in the Americas.
