Conflicts & War

Nicaragua orders seizure of assets of 222 opposition figures expelled to US

Tegucigalpa, Jun 9 (EFE).- A court in Nicaragua on Friday ordered the attorney general’s office to confiscate the assets of the 222 political prisoners who were expelled to the United States on Feb. 9 and then stripped of their nationality.

In a ruling dated May 19 but released on Friday, the First Chamber of the Civil Court of Appeals in Managua said that, in addition to their properties, all the shares and commercial companies that those convicted have “are immobilized and confiscated in favor of the State of Nicaragua.”

According to the court, the sentence was handed down as part of compliance with the resolutions issued in February ordering the immediate deportation and loss of Nicaraguan nationality of the 222 people, sentenced for “committing acts of undermining the independence, sovereignty, self-determination of the people, as well as for inciting violence, terrorism and economic destabilization.”

Among the 222 expelled Nicaraguans are seven who sought to run against current President Daniel Ortega in the last election.

They include Cristiana Chamorro, daughter of former President Violeta Barrios de Chamorro (1990-1997), the presidential candidate considered most likely to defeat Ortega in the November 2021 elections, as well as Arturo Cruz, Félix Maradiaga, Juan Sebastián Chamorro, Miguel Mora, Medardo Mairena and Noel Vidaurre.

The list also includes ex-ministers, former ambassadors, student leaders, human rights activists, Sandinista dissidents, peasant leaders, priests, journalists, activists and independent professionals.

Nicaragua has been experiencing political and social crises since April 2018, which worsened after the controversial general elections of Nov. 7, 2021, in which Ortega was re-elected for a fifth term, fourth in a row and second together with his wife Rosario Murillo as vice president, with his main contenders put in prison or fleeing into exile.

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