A Nicaraguan court has found the owner of a prominent newspaper known for criticizing the government of President Daniel Ortega guilty of money laundering charges, his wife said on Thursday.
Prosecutors asked for La Prensa owner Lorenzo Holmann Chamorro to be sentenced to nine years in prison.
Holmann Chamorro is the cousin of Cristiana Chamorro, a journalist who was on Monday sentenced to eight years in prison after being convicted of money laundering and embezzlement.
Cristiana Chamorro has denied the allegations and claims she is being persecuted for having dared to try to stand against Ortega in November’s presidential election.
She was one of seven presidential hopefuls among more than 40 opposition figures detained since June 2021.
The daughter of Violeta Chamorro, who defeated Ortega in the 1990 election, was actually leading opinion polls until her arrest.
“I am innocent and have committed no crimes,” said Holmann Chamorro, who is due to be sentenced next week.
“If I have to be convicted for carrying the Chamorro surname, I am ready to pay that penalty,” he told the judge, according to La Prensa, which had to discontinue its paper edition in August 2021 when he was arrested.
Meanwhile, Nicaragua’s government also expelled the resident delegate of the International Committee of the Red Cross, Thomas Ess, the NGO’s spokeswoman told AFP.
Maria Cristina Rivera said the Red Cross was given no reason for the expulsion but that Ess had already left the country.
“Despite this situation, the ICRC ratifies its commitment to continue its humanitarian work in Nicaragua,” said Rivera.
The expulsion comes just days after the Vatican representative, Waldemar Stanislaw Sommertag, was also told to leave the Central American country.
On Wednesday, Nicaragua’s ambassador to the Organization of American States, Arturo McFields, branded Ortega’s rule a “dictatorship” and slammed the treatment of “political prisoners.”
Ortega won a fourth successive election last year after all his challengers were jailed, in a vote widely dismissed as a farce.
The 76-year-old former leftist guerrilla accuses his opponents of trying to overthrow him with the help of Washington.
