Jan 27 (Reuters) – A Nicaraguan court declared Bayardo Arce, a long-time ally and economic adviser to President Daniel Ortega, guilty of money laundering, the Nicaraguan Attorney General’s Office said in a statement on Tuesday.
Arce, who was also one of the nine Sandinista commanders that governed the Central American nation in the 1980s, was found guilty alongside his personal assistant, Ricardo Bonilla. Arce’s wife and her brother, who are both in exile, were named as co-conspirators in the scheme.
Arce has been imprisoned for six months, after he was detained in July. The ruling against him comes three days after his family from exile told newspaper El Pais that he had been arrested without a warrant, held incommunicado and subjected to mistreatment, and now fear for his life due to his age and serious health conditions.
According to the family, Arce was not formally charged or brought before a judge. Nicaragua’s government has not said when or if Arce faced a trial, and on Tuesday did not provide a sentence.
Judges said the defendants ran a long-running $2.71 billion money-laundering scheme that involved tax fraud and used shell companies, bank accounts and financial transactions to hide the origin and destination of funds.
Arce had been the last of the Sandinista commanders to back Ortega, who has increasingly been cracking down on dissidents and isolating the country from global diplomacy.
Relatives told El Pais that Arce is a political prisoner caught in an internal purge led by Ortega’s wife Rosario Murillo against figures seen as obstacles to a family succession of power. Murillo now holds the role of co-president alongside Ortega.
Murillo, who also serves as the government’s spokesperson, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
(Reporting by Gabriela Selser; Writing by Brendan O’Boyle; Editing by Kylie Madry and Alistair Bell)
Comments