MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 26th May, 2023) Priest Jaime Ivan Montesinos Sauceda was arrested in Nicaragua on suspicion of committing crimes that undermine the independence of Nicaragua, local media reported on Thursday, citing police.
"In the department of Boaco, municipality of San Jose de los Remates... priest Jaime Ivan Montesinos Sauceda, 61, was arrested. The parish priest of the 'Juan Pablo Segundo' Church of the Municipality of Sebaco, department of Matagalpa, was behaving suspiciously, intoxicated and in the company of a young woman, on board of a white Toyota Hilux van," the national police was quoted as saying by the Canal 4 broadcaster.
The police are investigating the priest for acts that undermine the independence, sovereignty, and self-determination of the nation, the report said.
Sauceda is the third minister of the Catholic Church arrested in Nicaragua under a criminal article, local media reported.
In February 2022, an appeal court in Nicaragua's capital, Managua, sentenced Bishop Rolando Jose Alvarez Lagos of Matagalpaz to 26 years and 4 months in prison. Bishop Alvarez was on a list of 222 people deprived of citizenship and subject to deportation to the United States, but he refused to leave the country. After his arrest in August 2022 alongside seven other people, Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega accused the Catholic Church of attempting a coup. According to the president, some of the priests in the country urged worshipers to carry out a coup, talked about the capture of military units and called for the physical elimination of Ortega himself.
