The Nicaraguan dictatorship has kept secret about the whereabouts of the bishop of the Diocese of Matagalpa, Monsignor Rolando José Álvarez Lagos. Since his transfer to the Jorge Navarro National Penitentiary System (SPN), known as “La Modelo”, there has been no information about him. Even his family has not been able to see him.
Various religious have spoken out about this forced disappearance to which the also apostolic administrator of the Diocese of Estelí is subjected. Daniel Ortega’s regime has unleashed its fury against the cardinal because he resisted being banished from his country.
«The regime of Daniel Ortega and his wife Rosario Murillo has disappeared Bishop Rolando José Álvarez Lagos. WE WANT HIM ALIVE!” Priest Uriel Vallejos, from exile, wrote on his Twitter account.
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The bishop accumulates more than six months since he was taken by force and kidnapped from the Episcopal Palace of the Diocese of Matagalpa, from where he was violently taken at dawn on August 19, 2022. For 15 days he was already besieged with no possibility of leaving to his pastoral work.
At the beginning of February the regime tried to banish him from Nicaragua by sending him on a plane to the United States, but the prelate ruined the plan of the dictatorial couple and refused to board the flight.
His sister has asked the regime’s justice to allow her to see her relative, but everything has been useless. She does not know where and how she is. The prelate is part of the group of more than 30 political prisoners that the dictatorship maintains in its jails, most of them are confined in “La Modelo” in Tipitapa.
After resisting being banished, the bishop was taken to the Courts of Managua where he was subjected to an express summary trial. That same day, February 10, he was found guilty, sentenced to 26 years in prison, stripped of his nationality, and stripped of his civil and political rights for life.
