Tegucigalpa, February 10. Nicaraguan Bishop Rolando José Álvarez Lagos, very critical of the government of President Daniel Ortega and who had refused exile the day before, was sentenced this Friday to 26 years and 4 months in prison, stripped of his nationality, and his citizenship rights suspended for life.
The senior official’s sentencing came a day after he refused to board the plane that would take him and 222 other freed Nicaraguan political prisoners to the United States, which angered President Ortega. who described him as “arrogant”, “unbalanced” and “energúmeno”.
“He is deranged, but well, that will have to be determined by the legal authorities and the medical authorities who will also have to deal with him, because now that he has arrived at the model (prison), it has happened that he is a crazy,” Ortega gushed on a national broadcast last night after announcing that the Bishop had been moved from his residence, where he had been under house arrest since last August, to a maximum-security prison.
A day later and despite the fact that the trial was scheduled for February 15, a Nicaraguan judge declared the cleric a “traitor to the homeland” and author of four crimes to the detriment of society and the State of Nicaragua.
Álvarez, 56, is the first bishop to be arrested, charged and sentenced since Ortega returned to power in Nicaragua in 2007.
SEVERITY OF HIS NATIONALITY AND CIVIL RIGHTS
“Keep the defendant Rolando José Álvarez Lagos as a traitor to the homeland”, according to the sentence pronounced by the judge of the second criminal court of Managua, Nidia Camila Tardencilla, although it was read by the magistrate Octavio Rothschuh, president of Chamber One of the Court of Appeals of Managua.
In addition, the bishop was permanently banned from exercising public functions on behalf of or in the service of the State of Nicaragua, as well as from holding positions of popular election.
“In the same way, the loss of citizenship rights of the convicted is declared, which will be perpetual, all this for being the perpetrator of the crime of undermining national integrity to the detriment of the State and Nicaraguan society” , depending on the decision.
Likewise, the court declared “the loss of Nicaraguan nationality” to Álvarez, bishop of the diocese of Matagalpa, apostolic administrator of the diocese of Estelí.
According to the judgment, the bishop will remain in prison until April 13, 2049. In addition to this sentence, the judge sanctioned him with a fine of 800 days (56,461.15 córdobas or $1,555).
The court found the chief guilty of being the perpetrator of the crimes of undermining national integrity, spreading false news through information and communication technologies, aggravated obstruction of duties, of disobedience or contempt of authority, all committed in real bankruptcy and to the detriment of Nicaraguans. Nicaraguan society and state.
BISHOP BÁEZ: HATE FOR DICTATORSHIP IN NICARAGUA IS UNMARKED
“The irrational and unbridled hatred of the Nicaraguan dictatorship against Bishop Rolando Álvarez. They are vengeful against him. They did not resist his moral height and his prophetic coherence”, says auxiliary bishop of Managua and exiled in the United States, Silvio Baez, in a tweet.
“Rolando will be free, God will not abandon him. They sink every day in their fear and their wickedness,” he added.
Nicaraguan humanitarian organizations rejected the conviction and demanded his release and the restoration of his rights.
“The Nicaraguan Human Rights Collective Nunca Más repudiates the sentence of 26 years and four months against Bishop Rolando Álvarez Lagos, Bishop of the Diocese of Matagalpa, for having been arbitrary and unconstitutional through a hidden, unknown and void judicial process” , he said. body in a message.
Álvarez was kidnapped at dawn on August 19 by police from a provincial episcopal palace along with four priests, two seminarians and a cameraman, after being locked up for 15 days.
The police, led by Francisco Díaz, Ortega’s brother-in-law, accused Álvarez of trying to “organize violent groups”, allegedly “with the aim of destabilizing the State of Nicaragua and attacking the authorities constitutional”. EFE
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