The lawyer Yonarqui Martínez, recognized for defending prisoners of conscience, denounced that last week, in an “apparent error”, the Managua Court Notifications Office delivered a summons for her at the house of a political prisoner and not at his home. Situation that exposes her to being arrested.
Martínez had to appear, on June 2, at the Managua Courts to participate as an expert in a case in which she is not the accused. However, according to the notification —that she did not arrive at her home— an arrest warrant would be issued against her if she did not appear.
“They took the notification to a place that is not my address. Today (Monday) that I joined my work, a third person tells me that I have problems because I did not arrive to an appointment that I had on June 2, I began to investigate and I found out that the notifier visited two relatives of political prisoners; one who, as he is already released, refused to receive it and another who received the notification thinking that it was for the relative of his political prisoner, ”Martinez explained.
In interview with CONFIDENTIALthe lawyer advocated for “more transparency and efficiency on the part of the Managua Court Notification Office.”
“If the notification never reached me, I do not have to appear. There must be greater transparency and efficiency by the Notifications Office of the Managua Courts in terms of making notifications, so I advocate that they act as they should and annul that procedure, if there is one, and not give any process or an arrest warrant against me, because I was not notified”, remarked the human rights defender.
They left a notice in a place that is not my address and request that they capture me if I did not appear on June 2. Honorable Judicial Power seems to be looking for relatives of prisoners to notify me and I, with cold ears, have to wait for them to resolve against me.
– Yonarqui Martinez G (@YonarquiM) June 6, 2022
“I always appear when I am notified or summoned for a process. I have no problems, but this time I was not notified, ”she stressed.
Notifying outside the home “is illegal”
The lawyer pointed out that the fact that the notification was taken to a place that is not her home is “illegal in every sense”, since she cannot carry out orders that she does not know.
“I deduce that they wanted to use the relative of a political prisoner to be able to find me in the wrong way and then say we notified her with someone she already knows, and I without realizing it, grabbed me and issued an arrest warrant, because the notification says that If I don’t show up, they’re going to order me to be taken to the security forces,” he said.
“The question is that if now all the lawyers are going to notify us about our cases, appointments, etc., in the direction of our clients, our users, without knowing us, without realizing it, because I have changed my cell phone number twice and this person who received the notification, thinking that it was for his political prisoner relative, no longer has communication with me because his relative is convicted, I have nothing to do with them, there are no paperwork that he is doing to these people”, he added.
Martínez demanded that “due investigations be made of the notification officers who are doing things wrong, because if they start checking they will see that they are doing an injustice to me, because first they do not notify me at my home, and, second, they do it with people who have nothing to do with me.”
The defender assured that in recent weeks she has also had problems related to covid-19 and, if she had received the notification on time and at home, she would have informed the judicial authority of her health condition so that they could justify it, well, Nor would he have been able to attend so as not to expose others to possible contagion.
In recent years, Martínez has been the victim of reprisals from the regime of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo for legally representing political prisoners. The defender has been harassed in her home; she has suffered traffic tickets that she has described as unjustified; and she has been beaten and harassed by police and people related to the ruling party.
