Nicaragua’s National Police on Tuesday arrested two more potential challengers to Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega, the third and fourth opposition pre-candidates for the Nov. 7 elections detained in the past week.
Felix Maradiaga was arrested after being called to the Nicaraguan Attorney General’s Office to provide a statement. He is being investigated for alleged crimes against the government.
His campaign said in a statement that police stopped him, his driver and his lawyer after they had left the Attorney General’s Office.
Photo: Reuters
Later on Tuesday, police announced the arrest of Juan Sebastian Chamorro, another pre-candidate and former director of the opposition coalition Civic Alliance.
He had received a notice to appear for an “interview” yesterday at the Attorney General’s Office to give a statement about a case against the non-governmental group Nicaraguan Foundation for Social Development that he led until 2018.
A police statement said he was being investigated for similar alleged crimes as Maradiaga.
Just before his arrest, Maradiaga had told journalists that he was interrogated for four hours about his activities as the former director of a non-governmental group focused on economic research, whether he had ties to drug traffickers and if on his trips to the US he had requested sanctions against Nicaragua.
He said he told them that he had requested sanctions, “but not to punish the people, but rather government officials who have committed crimes against humanity.”
Last week, authorities detained Cristiana Chamorro, a cousin of Juan Sebastian Chamorro, and Arturo Cruz Sequeira, a former ambassador to the US who was arrested on Saturday under a controversial “treason” law passed in December last year.
On Monday, a judge ordered Cruz held for three months while an investigation is carried out. Cristiana Chamorro remains under house arrest.
US Acting Assistant Secretary of State in the Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs Julie Chung wrote on Twitter that Maradiaga’s “arbitrary” arrest — and last week’s detentions — “confirm without a doubt that Ortega is a dictator. The international community has no choice but to treat him as such.”
Nicaraguan Vice President and first lady Rosario Murrillo mentioned the investigations on Tuesday, and characterized the subjects of the probes as “terrorists” and “criminals.”
“They believe they’ll be forever unpunished, [but] justice arrives, late, but it arrives in this Nicaragua that had been prospering and in reconciliation,” she said. “How much we would have done with what this mountain of thieves stole, not just thieves, but also terrorists, criminals.”
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