Tegucigalpa (BLAZETRENDS)
The Nicaraguan Justice, controlled by the Sandinistas, ordered the Attorney General’s Office to expropriate the assets of the 222 released political prisoners expelled to the United States on February 9, who were later deprived of their nationality.
“The confiscation of assets ordered by the Daniel Ortega regime, through the Attorney General’s Office, is a new blow to what is protected by the Political Constitution of Nicaragua,” Urnas Abiertas said in a statement.
That observatory reproached that “the different State institutions” of Nicaragua “continue working in order to violate the human rights of Nicaraguans” and that this “measure also violates private property, which is a right protected by the Political Constitution and by different international human rights instruments”.
In the opinion of Urnas Abiertas, “this measure puts the legal security of third parties at risk,” for which it called “on the international community to take the necessary measures and actions to return democracy to Nicaragua.”
“From Open Polls we denounce this new expression of totalitarianism and arbitrariness with which the regime acts,” he remarked.
The expropriated
In a ruling by Chamber One of the Managua Court of Appeals released on Friday, but dated May 19, it orders the Attorney General’s Office to “immobilize and confiscate in favor of the State of Nicaragua all the assets that the convicts have registered in their favor in the public registries of Real Estate and Commercial Property of the country, either in their personal capacity or as a legal entity”.
In addition to their assets, the resolution establishes that “in their personal capacity or as a legal person, all the shares and commercial companies that the convicted persons have are immobilized and confiscated in favor of the State of Nicaragua.”
Among the 222 expropriated expropriated Nicaraguan prisoners are 7 who tried to challenge the current president, Daniel Ortega, for the Presidency.
The expropriated are Cristiana Chamorro, daughter of former President Violeta Barrios de Chamorro (1990-1997), the aspiring candidate for the presidency of Nicaragua who was most likely to defeat Ortega, in the November 2021 elections.
In addition to Chamorro, the list of those expropriated includes the other six opposition leaders who tried to challenge Ortega at the polls: Arturo Cruz, Félix Maradiaga, Juan Sebastián Chamorro, Miguel Mora, Medardo Mairena and Noel Vidaurre.
Sandinista dissidents among those affected
The list includes the legendary ex-guerrilla Dora María Téllez, former Foreign Minister Francisco Aguirre Sacasa, former Vice Foreign Ministers Víctor Hugo Tinoco and José Pallais, and former ambassadors Mauricio Díaz and Edgar Parrales.
Also to the business leaders José Adán Aguerri, Michael Healy and Álvaro Vargas, the banker Luis Rivas, the general manager of La Prensa, Juan Lorenzo Holmann, the former Minister of Defense Pedro Joaquín Chamorro and the student leaders Lesther Alemán and Máx Jérez.
There are also human rights defenders, Sandinista dissidents, peasant leaders, priests, journalists, activists and independent professionals.
Nicaragua has been going through a political and social crisis since April 2018, accentuated after the controversial general elections of November 7, 2021, in which Ortega was re-elected for a fifth term, fourth consecutive and second together with his wife, Rosario Murillo, as vice president, with her main contenders in prison or in exile.