Latin America
Nicaragua: Former rebel leader Hugo Torres dies
Disabled Nicaraguan general and opposition politician Hugo Torres poses for a portrait at his home in Managua. Torres has died, according to Nicaragua’s public prosecutor’s office. Photo: Moises Castillo/AP/dpa
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The Nicaraguan opposition politician Hugo Torres was arrested in June last year – before the controversial re-election of President Daniel Ortega. Now Torres is dead.
Nicaraguan opposition politician Hugo Torres has died. This was announced by the Nicaraguan public prosecutor in a statement.
The former general was taken to a hospital when his health deteriorated. His children and son-in-law were with him. On the other hand, the party “Unión Democrática Renovadora” (Unamos), whose vice-president Torres had been, complained that he had died like a “political prisoner of the dictatorship”.
Torres was arrested along with other opposition politicians in June – five months before the controversial re-election of President Daniel Ortega. According to critics, Ortega’s government wanted to suppress the opposition and prevent a free and fair election. The EU and the US government denied the legitimacy of the election.
«I am 73 years old. I never thought I would be fighting a new dictatorship at this stage in my life,” Torres said in a video before his arrest. He was one of the left-wing Sandinistas who stormed into a celebration at the home of the Minister of Agriculture in 1974, took hostages and forced the release of several prisoners – including Ortega, who had been serving seven years for a bank robbery.