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Three Nicaraguan opposition figures guilty of 'undermining national integrity'
Three Nicaraguan opposition figures guilty of 'undermining national integrity'
Three key opposition figures in Nicaragua including a former deputy foreign minister have been found guilty of "undermining national integrity," a rights group said Friday, in a continuing crackdown on opponents of President Daniel Ortega.
A total of 46 opposition figures, including seven former presidential candidates, were jailed last year before a fraught presidential election that saw Ortega re-elected for a fourth consecutive term.
The Nicaraguan president has accused them of plotting to overthrow him with the support of Washington.
Victor Tinoco, an ex-guerrilla and former deputy foreign minister in Ortega's Sandinista National Liberation Front, was among the latest group convicted but has yet to be sentenced, the Nicaraguan Center for Human Rights said.
Academic Max Jerez and opposition leader Nidia Barbosa were also found guilty of the same charge, taking to 18 the number of opposition figures convicted of crimes against national integrity or "conspiracy."
The prosecution is seeking 13 years in prison for Tinoco and Jerez, and 11 for Barbosa.
Tinoco joined the Sandinista guerrillas in the 1970s, becoming ambassador to the United Nations after the triumph of the Nicaraguan revolution in 1979.
He served as deputy foreign minister between 1981 and 1990.
Jerez, a political science student at the Polytechnic University of Nicaragua, was involved in negotiations to end a political crisis triggered by mass protests in 2018 against tax hikes imposed by Ortega.
The demonstrations left 355 people dead, according to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. The government labeled the protests an attempted coup.
A.Gagnon--SMC
