The lawyer and human rights defender, María Oviedo, coordinator of the legal team of the Permanent Commission on Human Rights (CPDH), and the banker Luis Rivas Anduray, executive president of Banpro, regional CEO of Grupo Proamerica and former director of Funides, were declared guilty of violating Law 1055 or “Sovereignty Law”, at the beginning of this third week of political trials, held behind closed doors in the Directorate of Judicial Assistance, known as El Chipote.
Lawyer Eber Acevedo, legal representative of Oviedo, explained that the human rights defender was convicted of “conspiracy to undermine national integrity”, under Law 1055, and for allegedly “spreading false news”, according to the Special Law of Cybercrimes.
The Ortega Prosecutor’s Office requested eight years in prison for the lawyer Oviedo for the sum of both fabricated crimes. However, according to defenders of the CPDH, consulted by CONFIDENTIALthe Prosecutor’s Office was never able to prove the lawyer’s guilt.
They explained that the evidence presented against the human rights defender included statements she offered to the program This weekbroadcast on Facebook and YouTube by the Ortega regime’s television censorship, and testimonies from National Police officers who participated in the “investigative process.”
They point out that the legal defense of Oviedo, unable to provide evidence due to the lack of communication with his client, could only refute the statements of the Prosecutor’s Office, which “at no time did they prove the crimes of which the rights defender was accused. humans”.
Human rights defender María Oviedo is found guilty of conspiring to undermine national integrity and spread false news. The prosecution asks for 8 years. pic.twitter.com/l31hvaV6RW
—Eber Acevedo. (@EberVillachica) February 14, 2022
Oviedo was arrested on July 29, 2021, when she was visiting her mother, Socorro Delgado, in León, and since then she has been subjected to constant interrogations, ill-treatment, and physical and psychological torture in the cells of El Chipote.
The CPDH has denounced that, in these more than seven months of incarceration, Oviedo has been subjected to interrogations where he is tortured by telling him that “he will never see his children”, he is denied any type of communication with the minors, he has only ten minutes of sunny patio a week and they keep her in her cell with the light on 24 hours a day.
They also point out that the lawyer has lost more than 10 pounds in weight and has spots on her skin as a result of the few hours of sunlight she is allowed.
They ask for thirteen years in prison for Luis Rivas Anduray
CONFIDENTIAL confirmed that the executive Luis Rivas Anduray was also sentenced this Monday for “conspiracy to undermine national integrity”, using the Sovereignty Law, and for the crime of “illegal possession of firearms”.
In the case of Rivas Anduray, the Prosecutor’s Office of the Daniel Ortega regime He asks for thirteen years in prison for the sum of three crimes, but the third crime for which he was sentenced is still unknown.
Rivas Anduray was captured on the night of June 15, 2021, and since then he has been kept incommunicado in the cells of El Chipote.
The National Police indicated -after the arrest- that the banker was being investigated for allegedly “carrying out acts that undermine independence, sovereignty, and self-determination, inciting foreign interference in internal affairs, and requesting military interventions.”
Also for allegedly “organizing with financing from foreign powers to carry out acts of terrorism and destabilization, propose and manage economic, commercial and financial operations blockades against the country and its institutions”; and “demand, praise and applaud the imposition of sanctions against the State of Nicaragua and its citizens, and harm the supreme interests of the nation.”
Banpro’s management expressed – after learning of the capture of Rivas Anduray – that they were “sure the moral quality” of their executive and that they “trusted” that “their situation would be clarified.”
Trials in El Chipote violate the law
The political trials reactivated by orders of Daniel Ortega have been scheduled for the entire month of February against political prisoners, in the same facilities of “El Chipote”, where dozens have been imprisoned since the end of May 2021.
However, carrying out these processes in the prison facilities constitutes one more of the illegalities of due process, according to the specialist in Criminal Law, María Asunción Moreno, in an interview with Tonight.
Lawyers who closely follow the cases against political prisoners agree with Moreno that judges cannot hold hearings outside the Judicial Complex, and that the exceptions established in article 121 of the Criminal Procedure Code only apply to “proceedings” that require the presence of the judge in his territorial jurisdiction.
However, they maintain that the exception does not apply in the case of these political trials, because neither the defense nor the Prosecutor’s Office have requested that they be held in “the new Chipote,” the lawyer said.
The right to defense is violated
Another of the illegalities is that the defenders of political prisoners have not accessed their files – completely or partially – and they have not been able to talk freely with prisoners of conscience.
A lawyer who monitors political trials assured CONFIDENCIAL that in these processes the exercise of technical and material defense is being violated, contrary to article 124 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CPP), which establishes that “the parties may obtain their cost simple copies of the judicial proceedings without any paperwork”.
Also, he added, article 34 of the Political Constitution of Nicaragua is violated, which in its numeral 4, demands that “their intervention and due defense be guaranteed from the beginning of the process or procedure and to have adequate time and means for their defense ” .
In addition, this January 31, the Public Ministry violated the presumption of innocence of political prisoners, by calling them “criminals and delinquents” in a statement announcing the resumption of trials.
“These same criminals and delinquents have reoffended, attacking the rights of the Nicaraguan people and society, compromising peace and security. They are the same ones that promoted and directed the terrorist acts of the failed coup attempt of 2018, having paralyzed the country and created damage to the economy; They are the same ones that have caused so much pain and mourning in the Nicaraguan family because of the murders, torture and kidnappings,” he published.
Likewise, Ortega already condemned the political prisoners on November 8, in his most virulent speech against political prisoners, in which he called them “sons of bitches of imperialism.”
They demand the release of political prisoners
The Ortega regime keeps more than 170 Nicaraguans imprisoned, and more than 30 of them remain in “the new Chipote”, under isolation, in punishment cells, suffering physical and psychological torture, according to their relatives, who have only managed to visit them on five occasions during the more than six months of confinement.
Relatives of more than 30 political prisoners They demanded, at the end of January, the annulment of the trials and the unconditional release of all prisoners of conscience. In this way, they joined a previous statement, in which another group of relatives appealed for the support of “rulers, living forces of the nation and (Catholic) Church” so that they “lead” a “citizen unification process”, emphasizing that the release of prisoners of conscience would serve “as a kind of liberation shared by all Nicaraguans.”
After the communiqués, the Superior Council of Private Enterprise (Cosep), which had been silent since September 2021, supported the demand for the freedom of prisoners of conscience, and announced its willingness in favor of a national dialogue “without preconditions”, in in the midst of the worst legitimacy crisis of the Ortega regime, which previously announced meetings with different economic sectors, without mentioning COSEP.
Among the 39 political prisoners captured between May 28 and October 21 (including four under house arrest), 29 are accused of alleged conspiracy to undermine; another seven are accused of money laundering and other crimes; two are investigated for violations of the “Law of Sovereignty” and one for abusive management and improper appropriation and retention.
The regime has used against the opposition the package of repressive laws that they approved between October 2020 and February 2021, being the most used until now, Law 1055 or Law for the Defense of the Rights of the People to Independence, Sovereignty and Self-determination for Peace, better known as the “Sovereignty Law”, which facilitated the imprisonment of seven presidential candidates, as well as political, civic, student, peasant, former diplomat, journalist, activist, professional and human rights defender leaders.
He has also used the Special Cybercrime Law, known as the “Gag Law”approved on October 27, 2020, which penalizes whoever -according to the regime’s criteria- spreads “false news”.
Thus, the Prosecutor’s Office sentenced in January Donald Margarito Alvarenga Y Douglas Cerros Lanzas. Alvarenga was convicted of allegedly inciting “hate and violence” through Facebook posts and WhatsApp messages and for “subversion, disobedience and rebellion at the level of conspiracy to affect national integrity”; and Cerros for allegedly undermining national integrity and spreading false news.
