Three opponents of Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega have been released from prison and placed under house arrest “under police guard” for “humanitarian reasons”, the prosecutor’s office announced on Saturday.
They include 77-year-old former presidential candidate Arturo Cruz; 77-year-old former Foreign Minister Francisco Aguirre and 68-year-old former Deputy Foreign Minister Jose Pale. The three of them were placed under house arrest under police surveillance, it was clarified.
“Due to the health condition of the aforementioned persons, for humanitarian reasons, the judicial authority was asked to make a change, (to be placed in) pre-trial detention under house arrest,” the prosecutor explained in the press release he published.
The three men are among 46 opposition figures arrested in 2021, ahead of a landslide victory for incumbent Daniel Ortega, securing a fourth consecutive term since returning to power in 2007. The government accuses them of plotting to overthrow him. President Ortega with US support.
This development was announced a week after the death, in a hospital where he was treated under guard, of the former hero of the Sandinista guerrillas Hugo Torres, at the age of 73. The once emblematic form of the struggle against the dictatorship of Somosa had passed several years ago in opposition to Mr. Ortega.
The three opposition groups, whose immediate release was demanded by the Permanent Council of the Organization of American States (OAS) on Friday, are the first to benefit from such a measure.
Francisco Aguirre has already been convicted and is awaiting sentencing. The trials of Arturo Cruz and Jose Pale, as well as five other opposition figures, have just begun on Tuesday.
Relatives of the detainees who attended the hearing said they saw Jose Pale faint and stressed that Arturo Cruz was showing symptoms of Parkinson’s disease.
The Nicaraguan Center for Human Rights (CENIDH) said on social media that members of the trial saw a “police hospital doctor” on the scene, which “shows that the regime itself recognizes the deplorable state of health of prisoners.” the “risk of undue damage”.
Source: Capital
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