The alleged victim of the priest Manuel Garcia Rodriguezparish priest of the Jesús de Nazareno Church, in Nandaime, whom Daniel Ortega’s regime has kept imprisoned since June 2 —accused of alleged aggression— recanted in the Granada courts, and said that everything was an “accident and therefore that did not sign the complaint.
The woman, identified as Martha Candelaria Rivas Hernández, 44, accused the priest, in front of the official media, of hitting her with a padlock and “breaking her face” after an argument.
García Rodríguez is the first priest imprisoned in the midst of the dictatorship’s confrontation with the Catholic Church, whose bishops and religious have been accused of being “coup plotters”, after assuming a position in defense of human rights and institutionality in 2018.
In an accusatory tone, without offering evidence, in the note published in El 19 Digital, the official media even assures that the victim covered “his face hit by the brute force of the drunken priest”, when a police patrol arrived to inquire about the situation, which they described as a “sordid story”.
The change in the version of Rivas Hernández against the priest Manuel García was recorded in a brief document, which summarizes the session held before Judge María Graciela Monterrey Vélez, of the Granada Adolescent Criminal District Court, where, in addition to her, he appeared as “witness” his daughter, who is a minor.
As assistant prosecutor, lawyer Cristhian Kathiela Huete Zeledón participated in the case registered under subject 001562-ORR1-2022-PN. Rivas Hernández affirmed in that advance evidence hearing —as they technically call it— on June 17 last that, from the beginning, he opposed filing a complaint, “since I do not feel attacked since it was accidental, and that is why I did not sign any complaint”.
Until now, neither the Diocese of Granada nor the Episcopal Conference of Nicaragua has pronounced on this case, after the executive intensified its persecution of priests, besieging Monsignor Rolando Álvarez, Bishop of Matagalpa, in Managua and in the north of the country; to the father Harvin Padilla in Masaya and also after the appropriation of the Channel 51 to deliver them to officials close to the presidential family.
“He was not Father Manuel García’s partner”
The complainant also clarified the alleged “intimate relationship” with the priest, to which she referred in her first version, does not exist in the terms in which it was originally implied.
“A close friend is that I came to tell him my things,” he said before the judge. Convincingly, the woman said this time that she was not a partner “of Father Manuel.”
According to her, the “discussion” took place on May 30, when she went to the parish in Nandaime. She was accompanied by two of her children, both minors.
According to her, after dinner, her children went to watch television, while he and the priest “shared a few drinks.” The discussion allegedly occurred when she checked the religious’s cell phone.
“He told me that it was not what I was thinking, and he went to the gate, the gate area was dark, I go behind and he has his back, I am on his left, and he told me that you came to make a claim , where he tells me that he raised his hand, I bend down and see that blood is coming out and I called my daughter and told her: come, the father hit me, “the woman said this time.
She indicated that the priest apologized and even put a towel with chamomile on him, then they heard a commotion and that was when the priest went out into the street with a machete, in a sequence of images used by the official media to project the image of a violent religious.
The daughter confirmed before the judge that she was never present when the alleged attack took place and only knew about it when her mother told her. “We went to visit her father at church, I saw her beaten and out of desperation I went out and asked for help and told them to call the police and they told me they didn’t have the number. Then two bolonazos were heard and Father Manuel came out with a machete,” the young woman narrated.
For the young woman, the same day of the attack they stayed to sleep in the parish house and she also confirms that it was an “accident”. Martha Candelaria Rivas Hernández added that it was on Wednesday the first of June that she went to the doctor and at two in the afternoon she received a call from the neighbor that her house was surrounded by her and they were looking for her. That day was long, her son told her not to come and she ended up giving statements at three in the morning the next day at the Judicial Assistance Directorate.
