In Nicaragua, Bishop Rolando Jose Arvares Lagos was sentenced to prison before trial.
Joey Kariveli, Vatican City
A bishop in the Central American country of Nicaragua has been sentenced to 26 years in prison for treason.
Rolando Jose Arvares Lagos, the Bishop of Annadu Diocese of Matagalpa, has been given this power of imprisonment. A Nicaraguan court sentenced Bishop Alvarez, 56, to prison following he refused to board a plane with 222 others, including priests and priestesses, who had been ordered to leave immediately for the United States on charges of being dissidents or critics of the government.
The court pronounced this judgment on the charges of conspiring to destroy the integrity of the country and spreading false news through technological means of communication once morest the Nicaraguan country and society. The court has given the sentence without trial. The trial was supposed to start on the 15th of this month.
Two priests, Manuel Garcia and Jose Urbina of the diocese of Granada, are also in detention. Five priests, a deacon and two priest candidates who were deported on conspiracy charges have arrived in the United States.
It is the first time a bishop has been imprisoned since Daniel Ortega took power for a second term as Nicaragua’s president in 2007. On August 19, 2022, Bishop Arvares, along with some priests and seminarians, were detained by the police in the palace and 15 days later, the bishop was placed under house arrest. Now, he is in a high-security prison following a court ruling that denied him an extradition order.
