The sentenced handed down by the chief magistrate of the Managua appeals court is the longest given to any critic of the government of President Daniel Ortega over the last couple years.
MEXICO CITY — A Nicaraguan judge sentenced Roman Catholic Bishop Rolando Álvarez to 26 years in prison Friday, one day after he refused to get on a flight to the United States with 222 other prisoners.
Álvarez was arrested in August along with several other priests and lay people. When Ortega ordered the mass release of prisoners including political leaders, priests, students and activists and had some of them put on a flight to Washington Thursday, Alvarez refused to board without being able to consult with other bishops, Ortega said. Nicaragua's president called it “an absurd thing.”
Álvarez had been one of the most outspoken religious figures still in Nicaragua as Ortega intensified his repression of the opposition. “We hope there would be a series of electoral reforms, structural changes to the electoral authority — free, just and transparent elections, international observation without conditions,” Álvarez said a month after the protests broke out. “Effectively the democratization of the country.”
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