Nicaragua Regime Sentences Catholic Bishop Rolando Álvarez to 26 Years for Treason
“The defendant Rolando José Álvarez Lagos is held to be a traitor to the country.”
The Nicaraguan regime under Daniel Ortega sentenced Catholic Bishop Rolando Álvarez of Matagalpa to 26 years and four months for treason.
The regime charged Álvarez as a “traitor to the homeland” and “undermining national integrity and spreading false news.” The government also stripped him of his citizenship.
Álvarez refused to be exiled to the United States with 222 other deportees in a deal with the State Department. He didn’t want to leave “the Catholics who are suffering the repression of the dictatorship in Nicaragua.”
The next part is long but needed. It’s better to copy and paste than summarize. From Catholic News Agency:
The sentence read this afternoon by Judge Héctor Ernesto Ochoa Andino, president of Criminal Chamber 1 of the Managua Court of Appeals, states: “The defendant Rolando José Álvarez Lagos is held to be a traitor to the country.”
“Let it be declared that Rolando José Álvarez Lagos is guilty for being the author of the crimes of undermining national security and sovereignty, spreading fake news news through information technology, obstructing an official in the performance of his duties, aggravated disobedience or contempt of authority, all committed concurrently and to the detriment of society and the State of the Republic of Nicaragua,” the sentence states.
Detailing each of the charges and their respective penalties, the text adds: “The defendant Rolando José Álvarez Lagos is sentenced to 15 years in prison and perpetual disqualification from exercising public office on behalf of or at the service of the State of Nicaragua.”
“The loss of the convicted person’s citizen rights is declared, which will be perpetual, all of this for being the author of the crime of undermining national security and sovereignty,” the ruling continues.
The sentence also decrees “the loss of Nicaraguan nationality to the sanctioned José Álvarez Lagos, in strict adherence to Law 1145.”
The aforementioned Law 1145, as well as a constitutional reform that allows the loss of nationality of those sentenced for “treason,” was passed by the National Assembly of Nicaragua Feb. 9.
Today’s ruling reads: “The defendant Rolando José Álvarez Lagos is sentenced to five years in prison and an 800-day monetary fine (based on a percentage of his daily salary) for being the author of propagating fake news through information and communication technologies.”
“The penalty in days-of-fine is equivalent to the amount of 56,461 córdobas and 15 centavos (about $1,550).”
Lastly, the judgment sentences the “defendant Rolando José Álvarez Lagos to five years and four months in prison for being the author of aggravated obstruction of the performance of duty of an official to the detriment of the State and the Republic of Nicaragua” and also “one year in prison for being the author of the crime of contempt of authority.”
“The prison sentences will be served successively, so the convicted Rolando José Álvarez Lagos must serve 26 years and four months in prison,” the sentence reads.
The government arrested Álvarez in the middle of the night in August 2022. They put him under house arrest.
Ortega accused Catholic leaders of trying “to overthrow him when some served as mediators with protest groups after protests that killed about 300 people erupted in 2018.”
Ortega’s paranoia pushed him to expel “Catholic nuns and missionaries and closed Catholic radio and television stations.”
Pope Francis has asked our Blessed Mother, the Virgin Mary, to intercede for Álvarez:
The news from Nicaragua has saddened me a great deal, and I cannot but remember with concern Bishop Rolando Álvarez of Matagalpa, whom I care about greatly, sentenced to 26 years imprisonment, and also those who have been deported to the United States. I pray for them and for all those who are suffering in that dear nation, and I ask for your prayers. Let us also ask the Lord, by the intercession of the Immaculate Virgin Mary, to open the hearts of political leaders and all citizens to the sincere search for peace, which is born of truth, justice, freedom and love, and which is achieved through the patient pursuit of dialogue. Let us pray together to Our Lady. [Hail Mary]
If you are Catholic, please pray the Rosary. If you’re not Catholic, please pray for Álvarez and every one the regime has oppressed.
The State Department even condemned Álvarez’s imprisonment:
“We condemn this action by the government of Nicaragua and urge Bishop Alvarez’s immediate release,” State Department spokesman Ned Price told reporters.
Price reiterated that Thursday’s release of 222 prisoners was a “welcome step” but said it was “not a panacea for the many concerns we have with the Nicaraguan regime.”
“We continue to call for the release of individuals in prison to Nicaragua for exercising their fundamental freedoms,” Price said.
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Comments
a “traitor to the homeland” and “undermining national integrity and spreading false news.”
So he is their Joe Biden? It is amazing that Daniel Ortega is still living. That scoundrel could and I guess still can dodge a half dozen bullets at one time.
Imagine, a Catholic Church Leader imprisoned for NOT being a good Communist! I am sure the Pope will ignore the situation.
I suspect that the Pope is more supportive of Daniel Ortega than of this priest.
Sucks to be him.
Now do Michael “Snuffy” Pfleger. Just to balance the books.
Another example of the only good commie is a dead commie. They let Ortega hang around and keep all the stuff he stole after the fall of the Sandinistas. With the help of Hugo Chavez, he came back into power and he’s never giving up.
Hey, they’re treating him like he wandered into the Capitol on January 6.
The Nicaraguan regime under Daniel Ortega sounds a lot like the FBI here in the U.S.
Biden
A guy named after a city in Nigeria is already suspect. (Of what, I don’t know, but I am practicing being a Fibbie.)
They sentenced the Bishop to exile in the United States – that sounds more like a reward than a punishment! I’d say the Bishop won.
And from what I can tell not one word of condemnation for these acts has been forthcoming from Bergoglio for the imprisonment of one of his Cardinals. But then again, never expected much from him in any case. He’s too busy destroying the church to really care what happens to his people.
Reading Devil and Karl Marx Communism’s Long March of Death, Deception and Infiltration by Paul Kengor. Communism is out to destroy Christianity and anyone not following Marxism
The regime charged Álvarez as a “traitor to the homeland” and “undermining national integrity and spreading false news.”
In a few more years the same thing will be happening in the US.
Oh, wait – it’s already happening with the J6 and pro-life protestors.
When you convict a guy for “contempt of authority”, maybe don’t be so eager to demonstrate you’ve earned it.
Just sayin.
Typical of life under a Fascist regime.
D’s universally slandered Trump as a “fascist”, along with his supporters, and it never occurred to any of them that if he really was a Fascist they would be prosecuted and sent the DC Gulag (where the J6 protesters are currently being beaten daily).
The fact that they were able to falsely accuse him of anything and everything with precisely zero fear of any consequences was absolute proof that he was NOT what they accused him of being.