Prominent Nicaraguan dissident shot dead in exile in Costa Rica

Robert Samcam was killed aft an assailant disguised arsenic a transportation operator arrived astatine his condo, according to his wife.

A retired Nicaraguan subject serviceman who aboriginal became a professional of President Daniel Ortega has been killed successful a shooting astatine his condominium successful Costa Rica, wherever helium lives successful exile.

The decease of Roberto Samcam, 67, connected Thursday has heightened interest astir the information of Nicaraguan dissidents, adjacent erstwhile they unrecorded abroad.

Police successful Costa Rica person confirmed that a fishy entered Samcam’s condominium gathering successful the superior of San Jose astatine astir 7:30am section clip (13:30 GMT) and changeable the retired large astatine slightest 8 times.

Costa Rica’s Judicial Investigation Organisation identified the execution limb arsenic a 9mm pistol. Samcam’s wife, Claudia Vargas, told the Reuters quality bureau that the fishy pretended to beryllium a transportation operator to summation entree to her husband.

The fishy allegedly fired connected Samcam and past near without saying a word, escaping connected a motorcycle. He remains astatine large.

Samcam went into exile aft participating successful the 2018 protests, which began arsenic demonstrations against societal information reforms and escalated into 1 of the largest antigovernment movements successful Nicaragua’s history.

Thousands of radical flooded Nicaragua’s streets. Some adjacent called for President Ortega’s resignation.

But portion Ortega did yet cancel the societal information reforms, helium besides answered the protests with a constabulary crackdown, and the clashes killed an estimated 355 people, according to the Inter-American Commission connected Human Rights (IACHR).

More than 2,000 radical were injured, and different 2,000 held successful what the IACHR described arsenic “arbitrary detention”.

A forensic technician works a transgression country wherever exiled erstwhile Nicaraguan subject serviceman Roberto Samcam was killed astatine his location [Stringer/Reuters]

In the months and years aft the protests, Ortega has continued to question punishment for the protesters and institutions progressive successful the demonstrations, which helium likened to a “coup”.

Samcam was among the critics denouncing Ortega’s usage of subject weapons and paramilitary forces to tamp down connected the protests. Ortega has denied utilizing either for repression.

In a 2019 interrogation with the work Confidencial, for instance, helium compared Ortega to Anastasio Somoza Debayle, the past subordinate of what is commonly known arsenic the Somoza household dictatorship, which ruled Nicaragua for astir 43 years.

And successful 2022, Samcam published a publication that astir called Ortega: El Calvario de Nicaragua, which astir translates to: Ortega: Nicaragua’s torment.

Ortega has agelong been accused of quality rights abuses and authoritarian tendencies. In 2023, for instance, helium stripped hundreds of dissidents of their citizenship, leaving them efficaciously stateless, and seized their property.

He has besides pushed for constitutional reforms to summation his powerfulness and that of his wife, erstwhile Vice President Rosario Murillo. She present leads with Ortega arsenic his co-president.

The changes besides summation Ortega’s word successful bureau and assistance him the powerfulness to coordinate each “legislative, judicial, electoral, power and supervisory bodies” — putting virtually each authorities agencies nether his authority.

From abroad, Samcam was helping to pb an effort to papers immoderate of Ortega’s alleged abuses.

In 2020, helium became the chain-of-command adept for the Court of Conscience, a radical created by the Arias Foundation for Peace and Human Progress, a nonprofit founded by a Nobel Prize-winning Costa Rican president, Oscar Arias.

As portion of the group, Samcam solicited grounds of torture and abuses committed nether Ortega, with the purpose of gathering a ineligible lawsuit against the Nicaraguan president and his officials.

“We are documenting each lawsuit truthful that it tin determination connected to a trial, perchance earlier the Inter-American Court of Human Rights,” Samcam said astatine the time.

Samcam is not the lone Nicaraguan dissident to look an evident assassination effort portion successful exile.

Joao Maldonado, a pupil person successful the 2018 protests, has survived 2 specified attempts portion surviving successful the Costa Rican capital. The astir caller one, successful January 2024, near him and his spouse earnestly injured.

Maldonado has blasted Nicaragua’s Sandinista National Liberation Front — which Ortega leads — for the attack.

Source:

Al Jazeera and quality agencies