4 priests sentenced to 10 years in prison for conspiracy in Nicaragua

MEXICO CITY (AP) — A Nicaraguan court has sentenced four Roman Catholic priests to 10 years in prison for conspiracy stemming from longstanding government allegations that the church supported illegal pro-democracy protests.

A human rights group in the Central American country immediately denounced the verdicts handed down on Monday and announced by lawyers from the Legal Defense Unit.

It was the latest chapter in a crackdown on the Church by President Daniel Ortega.

The priests were sentenced in closed trials, in which government-appointed defense attorneys acted as advocates for the priests.

The priests had worked with Matagalpa Bishop Rolando Álvarez, and one had been rector of the privately run Juan Pablo II University in the capital of Managua.

Álvarez is under house arrest for conspiracy and “damaging the Nicaraguan government and society” and is expected to be sentenced soon.

Two seminary students and a cameraman working for the diocese were also convicted on Monday. All six of the accused were arrested last year and all were stripped of the right ever to hold political office.

The Nicaraguan Human Rights Center called the sentences “a legal aberration.”

“This is an insult to the law, an insult to people’s intelligence, an insult to the international community and international human rights organizations,” the center said in a statement Tuesday.

Alvarez, the bishop, has been a key religious voice in discussions about Nicaragua’s future since 2018, when a wave of protests against Ortega’s government led to a sweeping crackdown on opponents.

The government arrested dozens of opposition leaders in 2021, including seven potential presidential candidates. They were sentenced to prison terms in summary proceedings in camera last year.

Ortega has claimed the pro-democracy protests were carried out with foreign support and with support from the Catholic Church. Last year he expelled the nuns of the Sisters of Charity of Mother Teresa and the papal nuncio, the Vatican’s top diplomats in Nicaragua.

Last August, Pope Francis told thousands of people gathered in St. Peter’s Square that he was closely following “sorrow and sadness” events in Nicaragua, affecting “individuals and institutions.” He made no mention of the dententions of the priests or Álvarez.

“I would like to express my conviction and my hope that through an open and sincere dialogue we can still find the foundations for a respectful and peaceful coexistence,” said the Pope.

Ortega, a former Marxist guerrilla fighter who first came to power in 1979 after the revolutionary Sandinista group he helped lead toppled President Anastasio Somoza’s dictatorship, infuriated the Vatican in the 1980s. But he gradually forged an alliance with the church when he regained the presidency in 2007 after a long period without power.

Just days before he was elected to a fourth straight term last year, he accused the country’s Catholic bishops of drafting a 2018 policy proposal on behalf of “the terrorists, in the service of the Yankees.” He also labeled the bishops themselves as terrorists.

The Associated Press

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