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

Guatemala seizes over a ton of cocaine hidden in flour at Pacific port

Guatemalan security forces seized more than one metric ton of cocaine on Sunday after discovering the drug hidden inside containers filled with flour at a Pacific port, police said.

The cocaine was found inside two shipping containers at Puerto Quetzal, located about 85 kilometers south of Guatemala City in the southern department of Escuintla, according to a police statement.

Authorities reported that 1,039 rectangular packages of cocaine were concealed inside bags of flour, with a total weight of 1,240 kilograms. No arrests were reported in connection with the operation.

Police said the shipment’s country of origin was not disclosed, and the seized drugs were airlifted to secure storage facilities in the capital for safekeeping.

International drug cartels frequently use Central America as a transit route for cocaine shipments bound for the United States, the world’s largest consumer of the drug.

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Central America

Guatemala’s president rules out negotiations with inmates after prison riots

Guatemalan President Bernardo Arévalo stressed that his administration will not negotiate with inmates nor restore concessions granted under previous governments, insisting that the Executive’s priority is to maintain control of the prison system and restore order in detention centers.

Arévalo said one of the key measures implemented by authorities was the blocking of mobile phone signals inside prisons, an action he described as decisive in regaining control of the Renovación 1 penitentiary.

The riots reported at Renovación 1, Fraijanes 2, and the Preventive Detention Center for Men in Zone 18 of Guatemala City were aimed at pressuring the state to recover privileges that had been recently revoked, Arévalo said during a press conference held Wednesday at the National Palace of Culture.

The president explained that inmates were seeking to reinstate special detention conditions, including air conditioning, king-size beds, and internet access, benefits that he said were eliminated by the current administration.

“They attempted to extort the state in order to return to that system of privileges, but they failed,” Arévalo emphasized.

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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.