The opposition Blue and White National Unity demanded this Friday to suspend the trials of all Nicaraguan priests, including four accused of conspiring to undermine national integrity, arguing that due process has been violated.
“We demand the annulment of the trials against all the priests, their processes have been full of irregularities and violations of their human rights,” the National Unit said in a public statement.
That opposition body, which considers that the priests “are innocent”, made this statement public on the same day that an initial hearing was scheduled to begin against four priests, two seminarians and a cameraman from the Diocese of Matagalpa, in the north of Nicaragua.
The accused are the priests Ramiro Tijerino, rector of the Juan Pablo II University and in charge of the San Juan Bautista parish; José Luis Díaz and Sadiel Eugarrios, first and second vicar of the Matagalpa Cathedral of San Pedro, respectively; and Raul Vega Gonzalez.
Also the seminarians Darvin Leiva Mendoza and Melkin Centeno; and cameraman Sergio Cárdenas.
Related news: They put the priests of Matagalpa on political trial and accept their trusted lawyers
The four priests, the two seminarians and the layman were accused by the Public Ministry of the crimes of conspiracy to undermine national integrity and propagation of false news to the detriment of the State and Nicaraguan society.
The head of the Fifth Criminal District Court of Managua, Nalia Nadezha Úbeda Obando, in charge of the case, summoned the parties to the initial hearing this Friday, and although the day before she accepted the change of defense attorneys to the accused, No details of today’s hearing were released.
PRIESTS REMAIN UNDER SURVEILLANCE
The group of religious and laity, together with Bishop Rolando Álvarez, were abducted early Friday, August 19, by police officers from the Episcopal Palace of the Diocese of Matagalpa, after having been confined for 15 days, and since then they have been in jail. “El Chipote” police force, officially known as the Directorate of Judicial Assistance, with the exception of the bishop.
Álvarez, 55 years old and bishop of the diocese of Matagalpa, apostolic administrator of the diocese of Estelí, both in the north of Nicaragua, and who has since been under “home protection” in Managua, according to the National Police, has not been formally charged.
The National Police, led by Francisco Díaz, President Daniel Ortega’s brother-in-law, accuses the chief and his collaborators of trying to “organize violent groups,” supposedly “with the purpose of destabilizing the State of Nicaragua and attacking the constitutional authorities.”
According to the indictment, the religious used social networks, radio broadcasters, and the pulpit in the churches, between last August 4 and 6, to commit the alleged crimes, without specifying.
Related news: Church persecuted in Nicaragua: 55 exiled priests, two exiled and nine imprisoned
Last week, Ortega attacked the Catholic Church led by Pope Francis, accusing it of not practicing democracy, of being a “dictatorship” and a “perfect tyranny” and of having used “its bishops in Nicaragua to strike a blow of State” to his Government in the framework of the demonstrations that broke out in April 2018 over controversial social security reforms.
The arrest of Álvarez and seven other priests, including the four defendants, is the most recent chapter in a particularly convulsive last year for the Catholic Church of Nicaragua with the Government of Ortega, who has branded as “coup plotters” and “terrorists” the hierarchs.
Relations between the Sandinistas and the Nicaraguan Catholic Church have been marked by friction and mistrust in the last 43 years.
