The Court of Appeals of Managua has sentenced Álvarez for the alleged fee of the crimes of conspiracy, propagation of false information, obstruction of features and contempt of authority, which add as much as a complete of 26 years and 4 months of sentence, in accordance with knowledgeable the Nicaraguan newspaper ‘Confidencial’.
In addition, the non secular chief will lose his nationality after being declared a “traitor to the homeland” –as the federal government of Daniel Ortega did on Thursday with the 222 folks released–, and must spend his sentence in La Modelo jail. .
The president of Nicaragua, Daniel Ortega, described on Thursday the bishop of Matagalpa as “unhinged, “vitality” and “smug”, criticizing his determination to simply accept his banishment from the nation.
“What we’ve is smug habits, from somebody who considers himself the pinnacle of the Church in Nicaragua (…) and should assume that he’s about to decide on the place of His Holiness the Pope. He is deranged, however they may have that what the judicial authorities and the medical authorities should say as a result of they must deal with him,” the Nicaraguan head of state asserted in a speech reported by ‘La Prensa’.
Álvarez is a member of the Nicaraguan Episcopal Conference (CEN) and is acknowledged within the nation for his work in protection of human rights in opposition to Sadinista oppression. In truth, in 2022 he grew to become the primary bishop of the Catholic Church to be arrested since Ortega took energy in 2007.
The Nicaraguan president beforehand referred to as the Church a “good dictatorship” and “utilizing” its bishops to “launch a coup” within the Central American nation, assuring that some clergymen referred to as for bloodshed through the wave of protests in 2018, which resulted within the dying of greater than 300 folks.
Conviction and expulsion of 222 political prisoners
However, Álvarez’s sentence comes sooner or later after 222 folks, all of them thought-about “traitors to the nation”, have been deported from Nicaragua on a airplane sure for the United States, in an unprecedented measure, since that they had been accused allegedly inciting violence and terrorism, in addition to finishing up “financial destabilization” actions.
The scenario of the prisoners has been a recurring supply of complaints from the worldwide neighborhood and organizations such because the United Nations. The Mechanism for the Recognition of Political Prisoners estimated the variety of inmates in January no less than 245, together with ten imprisoned earlier than the 2018 protests, thought-about a turning level.
The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Turk, additionally demanded in December the “rapid” launch of 225 individuals who remained “arbitrarily” detained for his or her dissent in opposition to the federal government of Daniel Ortega. In his periodic report on the scenario, he denounced the “precarious” situations during which these prisoners have been detained, in addition to the “humiliating and degrading” therapy to which their households are subjected.