Central America

Nicaragua opposition leader Chamorro sentenced to 8 years in prison: NGO

AFP

Nicaragua’s main opposition figure and would-be presidential challenger to Daniel Ortega was sentenced Monday to eight years in prison after being found guilty of financial crimes, a human rights group said.

Cristiana Chamorro, 68, will remain under house arrest, as she has been since she was detained in June, according to the Nicaraguan Center for Human Rights (CENIDH).

The charges brought by President Ortega’s government had prevented her from running in the November presidential election in which she was regarded as the favorite.

Chamorro was accused by the state of laundering money, property and assets through her media foundation as well as promoting “ideological falsehood” and destabilizing the government.

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Chamorro’s brother Pedro Joaquin Chamorro and two former employees of her free speech foundation, as well as her driver, were also convicted by a court last week.

Pedro Joaquin Chamorro was sentenced to nine years in prison and is being held at the Judicial Assistance Directorate (DAJ) of the police.

The three others also received sentences of up to 13 years.

CENIDH said Cristiana Chamorro and the others were also slapped with “million-dollar fines” that are “impossible to pay, and if they are commuted, it would be the equivalent to life imprisonment.”

Chamorro has denied the charges against her and said they were only brought to block her from running against Ortega, the 76-year-old former guerrilla who has governed since 2007 and who won a fourth consecutive term in November.

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“They want to stain my name, but they will not succeed,” she told the court at the end of the trial, according to 100% News, an online media outlet critical of the government. “They will never succeed in staining the name of my father or my mother, because I am innocent.”

A journalist not aligned with any political party, Chamorro is one of seven former presidential candidates and nearly 40 opposition figures arrested last year in the run-up to the November 7 election.

She is the daughter of former president Violeta Barrios de Chamorro, who defeated Ortega at the polls in 1990, and of journalist Pedro Joaquin Chamorro, was shot dead in Managua in 1978 for opposing the Somoza dictatorship, which ruled Nicaragua for nearly half a century until the victory of Ortega’s Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) in 1979.

During Chamorro’s seven-day, closed-door trial, the government alleged financial crimes were committed through the Violeta Barrios de Chamorro Foundation, a press freedom training and defense center that Chamorro directed for 20 years and which has since been shuttered.

The state said the foundation was used to receive money from abroad to go towards destabilizing the government of Ortega and his vice-president and wife Rosario Murillo.

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Central America

Mazatenango Carnival cancelled amid State of Siege in Guatemala

The municipal government of Mazatenango, in the department of Suchitepéquez, Guatemala, has cancelled the city’s traditional Carnival as a security measure aimed at protecting visitors and residents.

The decision was announced on Tuesday through the municipality’s official Facebook page and comes as a preventive action amid the state of siege declared by the national government last Sunday.

The Mazatenango Carnival, one of the country’s most emblematic festivities, boasts more than 140 years of traditionand typically draws large crowds from across Guatemala and neighboring regions. Its program usually includes parades of floats, the traditional “Rabbit Race,” street dancing and live music, concerts, and cultural events in the Central Plaza.

According to the official statement, the cancellation responds to the current security context and the restrictions associated with the state of siege, prioritizing public safety.

Municipal authorities clarified that the scheduled concert by La Arrolladora Banda El Limón will still take place separately and will be the sole responsibility of the private production company, independent of the cancelled carnival activities.

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Central America

Guatemala raises police death toll to nine after gang violence escalates

Guatemalan authorities raised the death toll of police officers killed in a wave of gang violence to nine on Monday, after one officer wounded in the attacks died from his injuries. The violence prompted the government to declare a state of siege.

Criminal gangs launched a series of coordinated attacks against police forces across several parts of the country in retaliation for the government’s recapture of three prisons, where gang leaders had been holding dozens of prison guards hostage. Authorities said the hostages were used to pressure officials into transferring gang leaders to facilities with looser security measures.

Eight police officers were killed on Sunday. Another officer, identified as Frayan Medrano, died Monday in a public hospital after being shot while riding a motorcycle with a colleague, who remains in critical condition, according to police and the Ministry of the Interior.

Central America

Guatemala prison uprisings leave 46 guards held by gangs

Gang members staged riots, took prison guards hostage and set fires on Saturday at several prisons in Guatemala, in protest over the transfer of their leaders to a maximum-security facility and the implementation of new confinement measures, authorities said.

The Barrio 18 and Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13) gangs — both designated as terrorist organizations by the United States and Guatemala — are accused of contract killings, extortion and drug trafficking. Guatemala’s Minister of the Interior, Marco Antonio Villeda, confirmed that the unrest affected three prison facilities.

Villeda said the riots did not result in any fatalities or injuries, but 46 prison guards are currently being held hostage by gang members.

The minister stated that the government is willing to engage in dialogue to secure the release of the detained personnel, regain control of the prison facilities and ensure that inmates submit to internal regulations and the rule of law.

“Dialogue, not negotiation. We are dealing with terrorist structures that are financed and well organized. These are terrorist groups with whom we will not negotiate. The State is acting with legitimacy and in accordance with the law,” Villeda said.

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According to official figures, 18 guards are being held at the Renovación 1 prison and the Preventive Detention Center for Men in Zone 18 — nine at each facility — while another 28 guards are hostages at the Fraijanes 2 prison.

Villeda acknowledged that all three prisons remain under gang control, but stressed that authorities are prioritizing the safety of those being held. “We will guarantee their lives and respect for them. We will take whatever time is necessary to retake control of the prisons,” he said.

The minister also warned that the prison riots are part of what he described as an “orchestrated plan,” which has included road blockades in other parts of the country and the destruction of penitentiary infrastructure and records.