Our world Nicaraguan regime sentences Bishop Álvarez to 26 years in prison, the harshest sentence to date for an Ortega opponent

DAVID AGREN OSV News

Bishop Rolando Álvarez of Matagalpa was convicted and sentenced by a Nicaraguan court to 26 years in prison Feb. 10 – barely a day after the outspoken prelate defied President Daniel Ortega by refusing to go into exile.

The court convicted Bishop Álvarez on charges of conspiracy to undermine national integrity and spreading false information after a secret trial in which he was denied a lawyer of his choosing. He was also stripped of his Nicaraguan citizenship and prohibited from holding elected office or a public position.

Bishop Álvarez was not present as Judge Octavio Rothschuh delivered the decision Feb. 10 over state-controlled media.

Ortega disparaged Bishop Álvarez the previous day as “deranged” and accused him of being “someone who considers himself leader of the Church in Nicaragua, the Church in Latin America.”

Bishop Álvarez refused to board a Feb. 9 flight carrying more than 200 political prisoners to the United States, according to Ortega, who says the prelate wanted to meet first with his fellow bishops. Bishop Álvarez was subsequently moved from house arrest – where he had languished incommunicado for five months – to a prison notorious for deplorable conditions.

“Irrational and uncontrollable hatred from the Nicaraguan dictatorship toward Bishop Rolando Álvarez. Merciless vengeance against him. They have not withstood his moral stature and his prophetic coherence,” tweeted Auxiliary Bishop Silvio José Baez of Managua, who has been exiled in Miami.

“Rolando will be free. God will not abandon him,” he tweeted. “They sink further each day in their fear and evil,” he wrote about the regime.

Bishop Álvarez’s conviction follows the Ortega regime sending 222 political prisoners to the United States, including six clergymen also convicted of conspiracy and spreading false information.