The three judges of the Nicaraguan Judiciary, sanctioned this Wednesday, April 19, by the Office of Foreign Assets Control of the United States Department of the Treasury, have been in charge of attacking political prisoners and opponents, whom they they have condemned, stripped of nationality and exiled.
The first judicial official to be blacklisted by the US government is the magistrate of the Court of Appeals of Managua, Ernesto Leonel Rodríguez MejíaOriginally from Matagalpa.
Related news: US Sanctions Three Nicaraguan Judicial Officials
The president of the Court of Appeals of the District of Managua (TAM) was appointed in accordance with order EO 13851, for having served as an official of the Government of Nicaragua as of January 10, 2007 and who on February 15, 2023 , announced the Court’s decision to strip 94 Nicaraguan citizens of their nationality, declaring them traitors to the homeland.
Rodríguez Mejía has been in charge of sentencing political prisoners, including Brandon Lovo and Glen Slate, sentenced to 23 and 12 years in prison for the murder of journalist Ángel Gahona.
In addition, it is pointed out by various national and international human rights organizations as one of the judicial ones that the dictator Daniel Ortega has used to repress political prisoners, before, during and after April 2018.
Article 66 He searched for the Facebook profile, which in 2021 the Ortega judge had active, however it appears without any recent photos or publications.
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Information published in the newspaper La Prensa indicates that the now-sanctioned magistrate began his judicial career in 2003, when he was appointed hearing judge in Matagalpa, but in 2005 he was transferred to Managua as Third Local Criminal Judge.
“His name began to sound in the media when he convicted opponents Leonel Teller and Luciano García, both councilors in Managua, very critical of the Sandinista administrations in the commune, for libel and slander, in different trials,” the newspaper said. .
The other two sanctioned
The other sanctioned is Nadia Camila Tardencillajudge of the Second District Court of Managua, in charge of prosecuting and sentencing political prisoners.
Tardencilla was the one who sentenced the former priest, and now a political exile, Edgard Parrales, to five years in prison for the alleged crime of conspiring against the homeland and subsequent to the student leader Lesther Aleman.
On February 4, 2022, he found guilty against the journalist and presidential candidate Miguel Mora, owner of the 100% Noticias media outlet, confiscated since 2018 by the Daniel Ortega regime.
On February 10, 2023, Tardencilla issued a court order stripping Catholic Bishop Rolando José Álvarez Lagos of his Nicaraguan citizenship and convicting him of treason, undermining national integrity and authority, aggravated obstruction, and spreading false news.
Related news: Priest, to judges and prosecutors of Ortega: “To convict innocent people they do not need a title”
Tardencilla Rodríguez was appointed as the new judge of the Second Criminal Trial District of Managua on February 3, 2021. On social networks she has been seen in photos with well-known Sandinistas, she is also a faithful follower of the dictators Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo.
As to Octavio Rothschuh, President of Criminal Chamber One of the Court of Appeals. On February 10, 2023, the magistrate announced the court’s decision to deport 222 Nicaraguans, declaring them traitors to the homeland.
On June 9, 2022, the European Parliament approved a resolution that seeks to sanction him along with Ortega judges and magistrates for considering that they are “responsible for the repression.”
The official, at the service of the Nicaraguan regime, has 28 years of experience and assumed his position as president of the TAM on July 2, 2021.
«It is an honor for me to have the support of doctors Angelita Dávila and Rosa Argentina, two great ladies of the administration of justice. I will not disappoint the vote of confidence that they have given me,” Rothschuh said after being appointed.
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Rothschuh is one of three officials who ordered the release of Pierson Gutierrez Solis, who in 2018 shot dead the Brazilian student, Rayneia Gabrielle Lima. The defendant was released under the controversial Law 996, also known as the Amnesty Law.
They also ordered to cancel the criminal record that the confessed murderer had in this case. Pierson Gutiérrez Solís took the life of the young woman of Brazilian origin on the night of July 23, 2018 in the surroundings of the University Rotunda, when the student was returning to her house, after doing her shift at a hospital in Managua.
Result of sanctions
Regarding the sanctions, the result of the sanctions is that all property and interests in property of these persons that are in the United States or in the possession or control of US persons are blocked and must be reported to the OFAC.
In addition, any entity that is owned, directly or indirectly, individually or jointly, 50 percent or more by one or more blocked persons is blocked. Unless authorized by a general or specific license issued by OFAC, or otherwise exempt, OFAC regulations generally prohibit all transactions by United States persons or within (or in transit) the United States involving any property or interest in the property of designated or blocked persons.
“The final objective of the sanctions is not to punish, but to provoke a positive change in behavior,” concluded the document where the sanctions of the magistrates were reported, accused of being accomplices of the repression in Nicaragua.
