A retired Nicaraguan military officer who later became a critic or president Daniel Ortega was killed in a shooting in his condominium in Costa Rica, where he lives in exile.
The death of Roberto Samcam, 67, in Thorsday has worried about the security of Nicaraguan dissidents, even when they live abroad.
Police in Costa Rica confirmed that a suspect entered the Samcam condominium building in the capital of San José at approximately 7:30 am local time (13:30 GMT) and shot at the greatest retired at least eight times.
The Judicial Investigation of Costa Rica identified the murderer as a 9 mm gun. Samcam’s wife, Claudia Vargas, told Reuters news agency that the suspect pretended to be a delivery driver to access her husband.
The suspect allegedly shot Samcam and then left without saying a word, escaping from a motorcycle. He remains in general.
Samcam is customary to exile after participating in the 2018 protests, which is as manifestations against social security reforms and became one of the largest anti -government movements in the history of Nicaragua.
Thousands of people flooded the streets of Nicaragua. Some even asked for the president of Ortega’s resignation.
But while Ortega finally canceled social security reforms, he also responded to protests with a police repression, and clashes killed about 355 people, according to the Inter -American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR).
More than 2,000 people were injured, and another 2,000 hero in what the IACHR described as “arbitrary detention.”
In the months and years after protests, Ortega has continued looking for punishment for protesters and institutions involved in demonstrations, which compared with a “blow.”
Samcam was among the critics that denounce the use of military weapons and the paramilitary forces of Ortega to reduce protests. Ortega has denied the use of either of the two for repression.
In a 2019 interview with the confidential publication, for example, Ortega compared to Anastasio Somoza Debayle, the last member of what is commonly known as the dictatorship of the Somoza family, which Nicaragua ruled for almost 43 years.
And in 2022, Samcam published a book called more or less Ortega: the Calvary of Nicaragua, which translates approximately as: Ortega: the torment of Nicaragua.
Ortega has been accused for a long time of human rights abuses and authoritarian tendencies. In 2023, for example, those stripped of hundreds of dissidents of their citizenship, leaving the issue effectively and confiscated their property.
He has also pressed for constitutional reforms to increase his power and that of his wife, former vice president Rosario Murillo. Now he leads with Ortega as his co -chair.
The changes also increase the term of Ortega in the position and give it the power to coordinate all the “legislative, judicial, electoral, control and supervision” bodies, “putting Virtualy all government agencies under their authority.
From abroad, Samcam was an aid to keep an effort to document some of Ortega’s alleged abuse.
In 2020, a group created by the Arias Foundation for Peace and Human Progress, a nonprofit organization founded by a Costa Rican president of the Nobel Prize, Oscar Arias, became the expert of the Court of conscience.
As part of the group, Samcam paid the testimony of torture and abuse committed under Ortega, with the aim of building a legal case against Nicaraguan President and his officials.
“We are documenting each case so that it can go to a trial, possibly before the Inter -American Court of Human Rights,” Samcam said at that time.
Samcam is not the only Nicaraguan dissident to face an attempted team murder while in exile.
Joao Maldonado, a student leader in the 2018 protests, has survived two of these attempts while living in the Costa Rican capital. The most recent, in January 2024, left him already his partner strongly injured.
Maldonado is to blame for the Sandinista Front of National Liberation of Nicaragua, which Ortega leads, for the attack.
