France deplored Friday, January 27 the refusal of its ambassador to Nicaragua to attend the trial of two Franco-Nicaraguan women, who were sentenced to 8 years in prison and denounced “opacityaround this trial.
Jeannine Horvilleur Cuadra, 63, and her daughter Ana Alvarez Horvilleur, 43, were arrested on September 13 along with Ana Alvarez Horvilleur’s husband, Félix Roiz, a 56-year-old Nicaraguan engineer. Paris has regularly expressed its concern about their fate, while the regime of Daniel Ortega has singularly hardened against opponents and NGOs.
Both women were found guilty of “conspiracy to undermine the integrity of the Nation and spreading false news“.
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Worrying prison conditions
“Despite several requests to the Nicaraguan authorities“, Access to the trial was not authorized to the French ambassador, said Friday Anne-Claire Legendre, the spokesperson for the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs. “We regret the opacity maintained around this trial, the hearings having all been held behind closed doors“, she added. The hearings took place on January 17, 18 and 26.
Paris further says to itself “very concernedby the prison conditions and the state of health of the two women,especially since, despite our repeated requests, our local embassy has still not been able to access it, as provided for in the 1963 Vienna Convention on Consular Relations“, also said Anne-Claire Legendre.
More than 200 opponents are detained in Nicaragua in connection with the political crisis that began in 2018 with the bloody repression of demonstrations demanding the resignation of President Daniel Ortega and his wife and Vice-President Rosario Murillo. Felix Roiz was sentenced to ten years in prison.