Former Nicaraguan Political Prisoner Stranded in Guatemala
Nine months after his “release”
Abdul Montoya, released, denationalized, and banished to Guatemala, was refused entry by the US and Canada. He now awaits word from Spain, where he’s applied for nationality.
Por Ivan Olivares (Confidencial)
HAVANA TIMES – Banished to Guatemala in September 2024, former political prisoner Abdul Montoya is still marooned there, now waiting for the Spanish government will tell him whether or not they will grant him a Spanish passport. The United States and Canada have already refused to accept him in their respective countries. Fearing a new denial, Montoya is now petitioning to go to another country where he could pick up the pieces of his life, even though he’ll be 67 years old in a few months.
In an interview with Confidencial, broadcast June 8 on the Confidencial YouTube channel, Montoya spoke from exile, calling this experience his third Calvary. The first was his time as a political prisoner from August 2018 until June 2019, when he was released under the government’s unilateral amnesty law. The second torment occurred between April 2023 and September 2024, when he was once again imprisoned, this time accused of supposed cybercrimes and undermining the national sovereignty. This third Calvary began when he was banished to Guatemala, together with another 134 released political prisoners. Nine months later, he’s still there, with no job and no source of income.
Twice a political prisoner in Nicaragua
Montoya, by profession an agricultural and animal husbandry engineer, was a former member of the Sandinista guerilla. He remained within the Sandinista Front for a long time, until breaking with the party in 2014. When the 2018 April Rebellion broke out, he stood with those demanding an end to the regime of Daniel Ortega and his wife Rosario Murillo.
The personal consequence for him was being locked up twice. The first time was in August 2018, when he was accused of the fatal shooting of a Matagalpa man while participating in a peaceful march on August 11. The Police captured him at home and took him to the El Chipote jail in Managua.
Montoya was sentenced in a sham trial to 62 years in prison. However, he only served a few months of this sentence before being released under a controversial Amnesty Law the Ortega regime decreed -mostly to erase the crimes the government forces committed. Warned that there were threats against his life if he went free, Abdul decided to “vanish.” He changed his name and went to work on a coffee plantation in the northern department of Jinotega.
The three years he spent on that coffee farm were reasonably serene. He was able to work in his profession, take care of his family, and see them when they visited the hacienda. Calling himself “Julio Valenzuela” instead of “Abdul Montoya” provided another layer of protection against any of the Sandinista regime’s fanatical followers who might be looking for revenge.
His situation changed in April 2023, when he was detected and captured by the Jinotega Police, with the complicity of the plantation manager. He relived the terror of falling into the hands of the regime’s security forces and suffered police interrogations that in some cases referred back to his participation in the 2018 April Rebellion.
Not repentant and not giving up
The first time around, the alleged reason for Montoya’s arrest was his supposed involvement in a murder; the second time, the alleged cause was illegal arms possession. He himself admits to having bought a gun, explaining that he wanted it for self-defense, due to the ongoing threats against his life he knew of. Although he was detained both times in the north of Nicaragua, both times he was take to Managua, even though Nicaraguan law mandates that a suspect should be tried in their own locality.
After two months in a District Three jail cell in Managua, Montoya was transferred to the penitentiary known as La Modelo, in the town of Tipitapa. There he was tried via videocall and sentenced to 23 years in prison. The accusation included cybercrimes, undermining the territorial integrity, organizing groups to take arms against the government, and declaring that the concept of “an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth” should be applied to the police. As if that weren’t enough, he was also charged with terrorism – the prosecutor assured that he planned to burn down the mayor’s offices in both Matagalpa and Jinotega, and had contacts with the CIA.
The trial was as a sham as that of the dozens of opposition leaders who were tried later. Among the irregularities noted was the fact that the lawyer assigned to his “defense” was a regime loyalist.
“One time I asked him: ‘Doctor, will you allow me a question?’ and he answered: “We can’t talk here.” I never saw him again. I had no way to defend myself. Another time that I wanted to speak, a policeman hit me in the ribs and said: ‘You have no right to speak; only to listen. You don’t have the right to stand up. You’re going to sit right here, and you’ll stand only when you’re headed off to La Modelo.’”
“’That’s fine,” I told him. “Thanks for telling me.” So, that’s how I spent the trial, until they found me guilty.”
Seven years after he began his struggle against the regime, he declares that he’s not sorry nor is he giving up. “I’m determined to see the day that Nicaragua is free, and we’re going to get there. We’re going to return. It’s true they stripped me of my nationality, but that’s only under the law, because in fact I’m Nicaraguan. I was born in Matagalpa. People know me, and wherever I am, I’m not going to stand aside. I’m going to continue in the struggle.”
Dependent on help to get by
While it’s true that there’s nothing like freedom, the former political prisoner admits that his exile in Guatemala has been difficult, because his economic situation “is extremely complicated.” He recalls that in the first months after he arrived in that county, he received help from the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (ACNUR), as well as from Conigua, the Commission for Nicaraguans in Guatemala, “but that’s all been cut off.”
Left with no income, he had to ask for help from relatives in the United States and some friends, in order to survive in Guatemala. These people helped him pay for rent and food. Still, he assures that he’s not going to give up and is seeking options in a third country.
Neither the U.S, nor Canada, nor Spain
The flight to Guatemala on that September 5, 2024, was a celebration of hope, especially when they saw the passports and realized that they were going to get out. They knew they were going free with the possibility of being admitted to the United States. That’s what a person who worked in the embassy of that country told them when they arrived at the airport very early that day. The explanation was that they were going free thanks to a negotiation between the US government and that of Nicaragua, but that they’d be making a layover in Guatemala.
They landed in Guatemala at 6:20 am and were received by government personnel from that country and from ACNUR who helped them fill out the paperwork before transferring them to the hotels. He laments that between then and now, “it’s been extremely tough,” because he’s banished, denationalized, without any options of returning to his country or of seeing his family.
The interview he had with a representative of the US Immigration office who had to evaluate his petition to be admitted to that country wasn’t really an interview, but a four-hour-long interrogation session. “The interpreter told me: ‘The agent says that at soon as I translate her question to Spanish, answer immediately. You don’t have the right to think.’” He adds with disbelief that the result of that process was that his case was declared “not credible.”
How much more evidence do you need, Ma’am?
His sense of contradiction is still greater because he presented the documents issued by the Inter-American Commission and the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, as well as a letter from the Human Rights Commission and another from the Association for Nicaraguan Political Prisoners. They argue in his favor the two confirmed facts of the two times he was imprisoned.
Following the US refusal, ACNUR personnel came to see him and ask him to choose two other countries he’d like to travel to, so that they could begin the process of seeing which could receive him. His options were Canada and Spain. Several days later, the ACNUR representative called him to tell him he was “ineligible” to enter Canada, and that they’d continue with the process of requesting entry to Spain. He agreed. That was in November 2024. His petition was to be naturalized as a Spanish citizen, but up to the present he’s still waiting for the response.
Meanwhile, he asserts that he’s already made the decision to leave Guatemala for a third country that he didn’t want to identify. He’s hoping that country will be the final settlement to his banishment. “I’m referring to going there and settling, completing the requirements of that country for seeking work and beginning to help out my family, because the economic situation in Nicaragua is very difficult. I can’t stay in Guatemala any longer. I have to travel to that other country,” he insisted.