The man who accused Daniel Ortega of raping his sister dies in prison

The Nicaraguan lawyer Santos Sebastián Flores Castillo, who denounced that the president of Nicaragua, Daniel Ortega, allegedly sexually abused his sister since he was 15 years old, died in a prison where he had been held since 2013 in unknown circumstances, a humanitarian agency reported Thursday .

Flores Castillo, 52, died last Tuesday in a prison known as “La Modelo”, the largest in Nicaragua and located about 25 kilometers north of Managua, indicated the Nicaraguan Center for Human Rights (Cenidh), which received the information of the victim’s next of kin.

Cenidh, which accompanies the family in the case it filed against Ortega before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR), demanded the Ministry of the Interior to initiate a thorough investigation to determine the causes of Flores Castillo’s death.

Cenidh representatives informed Efe that the man’s relatives are also trying to investigate the causes of his death.

The Nicaraguan authorities have not yet referred to this complaint.

They convicted him of rape

Flores Castillo is the brother of Elvia Junieth Flores Castillo, 32, who, according to the complaint by the brothers and herself, was sexually abused by Ortega since she was 15 years old.

The brother of the alleged victim of Ortega was accused and sentenced to 15 years in prison for the crime of rape against an employee of the Judiciary, charges that were always denied by the convict and his family.

Before being imprisoned on June 17, 2013, the lawyer had been trying for several years to get his sister’s case to emerge through human rights organizations.

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The case became relevant in November 2017 when his relatives decided to report from Miami, where they went into exile, alleged mistreatment and torture to which the inmate was subjected in prison.

At that time, Elvia Junieth, now the mother of two children and unrelated to Ortega, gave a press conference by telephone in 2017, in which she stated: “I am the main victim of abuse of power by the President of Nicaragua, Daniel Ortega Saavedra; he has destroyed my family, he has destroyed me. “

Case before IACHR and OMCT

That same year, the IACHR learned the details of the now deceased’s case and began its own investigations, which lasted four years, until he was admitted on September 7.

Since then, the Secretary General of the World Organization Against Torture (OMCT), Gerald Staberock, had contacted the Ortega government to express his “concern” about the conditions of Flores Castillo in prison, which included complaints about “serious mistreatment, isolation, and restriction of visits”, as well as lack of access to health care and human rights defenders.

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Before Elvia Junieth’s case was known, Ortega had already been the subject of a similar complaint from his stepdaughter, Zoilamérica Ortega Murillo, daughter of Vice President Rosario Murillo.

Narváez’s case did not progress in the Judicial Branch, controlled by the Sandinistas, and the stepdaughter ended up opting for exile in Costa Rica.

Flores Castillo’s family always maintained that their case was not political, but humanitarian, however, they held Ortega responsible for what happened to Santos Sebastián in prison. (I)