Nicaragua sentences student leader, ex-Sandinista commander

Nicaragua has sentenced a student protest leader and a former Sandinista rebel commander to prison on charges of “conspiracy to undermine national integrity,” the latest in a string of prison sentences following brief show trials this month

MEXICO CITY -- Nicaragua sentenced a student protest leader and a former Sandinista rebel commander to prison Thursday on charges of “conspiracy to undermine national integrity,” the latest in a string of prison sentences following brief show trials this month.

Student leader Lesther Alemán, 24, who famously stood up to President Daniel Ortega and told him to surrender in 2018, was sentenced to 13 years in prison. Dora María Téllez, 65, who led an assault on the National Palace in 1978 during the Somoza family dictatorship, holding congress members hostage in exchange for the release of rebel prisoners, was sentenced to eight years in prison.

Both were among dozens of opposition figures arrested by the Ortega regime last summer in the run-up to November’s presidential elections.

Alemán’s mother, Lesbia Alfaro, who was not allowed to attend the sentencing, called her son’s trial “nonsense, a lie, a circus.” She maintained Alemán’s innocence. “He is not a terrorist.”