The director of the Nicaraguan newspaper La Prensa, Juan Lorenzo Holmann, was arrested on Saturday (14) after an operation against the publication, linked to allegations of money laundering, and amid a wave of arrests of opponents of the Daniel Ortega’s diet.
In the early hours of Saturday, after 19 hours of occupation, “Holmann was taken by the police in his car, escorted by two patrols, to the prison of El Chipote”, allegedly to sign documents, denounced the reporter Carlos Fernando Chamorro on Twitter cousin. .
Three months before the elections, on November 7, Holmann brings to 33 the number of opponents and critics of the regime in prison, including Cristiana Chamorro, vice-president of La Prensa and pre-candidate for the presidency – with her there has seven pre-candidates arrested.
Ortega, 75, who has ruled the country since 2007, applied in the November elections for a fourth consecutive term with the former left-wing guerrilla Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN).
On Friday evening, during the Army Naval Force’s birthday ceremony, and as officers remained inside the newspaper’s premises, Ortega accused the owners of the vehicle of “money laundering and concealment. of evidence “.
Also considered a “slander”, the accusation that “they have no more paper, which is why the newspaper could not be released”.
“When you lie like that, when you slander the state, you are committing a crime.” “Anyone who slanders, anyone who defames, goes to jail,” Ortega said.
Journalists from the daily said on their networks that the stock of paper was not sufficient to print an issue and other publications owned by the company.