Two of the most emblematic figures of Nicaragua’s beleaguered opposition are facing years behind bars after being convicted of alleged acts of political conspiracy in trials campaigners and members of the international community called a sham.
Dora María Téllez, a legendary guerrilla leader during the Sandinista revolution, was found guilty during a closed-door trial at the notorious El Chipote political prison in Nicaragua’s capital Managua on Thursday.
Téllez, 66, helped liberate the city of León during the final push against the Somoza dictatorship in 1979 and commanded the legendary storming of Nicaragua’s national palace the previous year.
“[She was] a very beautiful girl, timid and withdrawn, with the kind of intelligence and good sense that would have ensured her great success in anything she turned her hand to,” the Colombian writer Gabriel García Márquez wrote of the 22-year-old student turned rebel in his account of the audacious 1978 assault.
Lesther Alemán, a former student leader who became an overnight celebrity for berating Nicaragua’s authoritarian president, Daniel Ortega, during a failed 2018 uprising, was also convicted of “conspiracy to damage national integrity”. “I’m innocent,” the 24-year-old shouted after his verdict was delivered in El Chipote, according to the opposition newspaper La Prensa.
Speaking to the Guardian at a Managua safehouse during the 2018 rebellion, Alemán said he sought political freedom, not fame, joking: “The cameras intimidate me more than Daniel Ortega.”
Prosecutors reportedly sought jail terms of up to 15 years for Alemán and Téllez, who was Nicaragua’s health minister during the first post-revolution Sandinista government but later turned on Ortega and became a fierce critic.
Thursday’s judgments – part of a wave of political trials playing out in Nicaragua – drew criticism from across the region, including from the left. “Shameful,” Chile’s president-elect, Gabriel Boric, tweeted after Téllez’s conviction was reported.
In a recent interview Zoilamérica Ortega Murillo, the estranged daughter of Ortega and his vice-president and wife Rosario Murillo, voiced fear for the future of activists such as Alemán.
“His bravery made me very afraid for him,” she said of his decision to publicly harangue Ortega in 2018.
“I know this was an unforgivable challenge and that is why he is one of the political prisoners who I most have in my heart,” Ortega Murillo said.
Nicaragua has been the stage for a relentless political crackdown since last May, when Ortega and Murillo launched an offensive against their rivals ahead of last November’s presidential election.
Having obliterated Nicaragua’s opposition by jailing dozens of challengers and forcing others into exile, Ortega secured another five-year term. The 76-year-old could now remain in power into his eighties, having governed continuously since he was elected in 2006.
