The Government of the United Kingdom announced on November 15 financial sanctions against eight officials from Daniel Ortega’s closest circle, including his wife and vice president, Rosario Murillo.
The United Kingdom’s Financial Office for the Implementation of Sanctions added to its list the President of the National Assembly, Gustavo Porras, and the President of the Judiciary, Alba Luz Ramos. They also sanction the attorney general Ana Julia Guido.
They also include two police chiefs: Fidel Domínguez (León) and Juan Antonio Valle Valle (from Tránsito). In addition to two important Ortega operators: Fidel Moreno, general secretary of the Managua Mayor’s Office, and Lumberto Campbell, Ortega’s henchman in the Nicaraguan Caribbean and currently a magistrate of the Supreme Electoral Council (CSE).
With these designations, which are known a week after the votes without political competition that gave Daniel Ortega a fourth consecutive term, the United Kingdom joins the effective sanctions imposed by the European Union and Canada, which include most of the same officials.
The sanctions were announced just a few hours after the United States announced this Monday what is so far its longest list of sanctions: nine officials that include the Superintendent of Banks, Luis Ángel Montenegro, the Deputy Minister of Finance, José Adrián Chavarría , three officials from the energy sector, three mayors from Ortega, the advising minister Mohamed Lashtar, and the Public Ministry.
In its sanctions, the United Kingdom is based on the law on sanctions and the fight against money laundering and the “freezing of funds and economic resources of certain persons, entities or bodies responsible for violations and abuses of human rights, the repression of society civil and democratic opposition, or the undermining of democracy and the rule of law in Nicaragua ”.
In May 2020, the United Kingdom also joined the sanctions that that same month, the European Union (EU) imposed six high-ranking officials of the Ortega regime, indicated as “responsible for serious violations of human rights and the repression of civil society in Nicaragua.”
Those punished on that occasion were the director of the National Police, the first commissioner Francisco Díaz; the general commissioners Luis Alberto Pérez Olivas, head of the Judicial Assistance Directorate (DAJ) that controls the El Chipote prison; Justo Pastor Urbina, head of the Directorate of Special Operations (DOEP), and Ramón Avellán, deputy director of the National Police. In addition, the close collaborator of the presidential couple, Néstor Moncada Lau, and the former Minister of Health, Sonia Castro.
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