In an agreement with Washington, Nicaragua released 222 political prisoners

In an agreement secretly negotiated with Washington,

and sent them on a plane to the United States, where they will receive asylum for two years.

It is one of the largest prisoner releases involving the United States, senior Joe Biden administration officials involved in the issue said.

"

," they said from the State Department, although they indicated that they will encourage "additional steps" by the Nicaraguan government to restore democracy and freedoms in that country.

The regime led by Daniel Ortega did not seek anything in return, the officials said, but agreed to release the prisoners as a way of signaling a desire to restart relations with the United States, which has imposed sanctions on Managua as the regime turned a dictatorship and intensified attacks on the opposition, the church and human rights organizations.

The US government sent a charter flight to the Nicaraguan capital, which took off this Thursday around 7:45 am (10:45 am in Argentina) to take the prisoners to Washington, where the plane was expected to land around noon, local time. local.

A total of 224 political prisoners were offered refuge in the United States, but two refused.

The State Department said the Ortega regime "unilaterally decided to release 222 people it had imprisoned, including a US citizen."

The US will receive them and they will be here on humanitarian parole for two years,

the US government said.

All those who were released and left the country voluntarily consented to travel.

The US government has made medical and legal assistance available to these people.”

Roy Molina,

a member of the Nicaraguan Democratic Alliance in Washington, told

that they will also help them with money to settle.

"Congress and the Department of State warned that they are going to be given medical and psychological treatment, and apparently there will be financial help for them while they are located."

The president of Chamber One of the Court of Appeals of Managua, magistrate Octavio Rothschuh Andino, confirmed that 222 people were "deported" to the United States.

The magistrate read a statement on the "immediate and already effective deportation of 222 people sentenced for committing acts that undermine the independence, sovereignty and self-determination of the people, for inciting violence, terrorism and economic destabilization".

“They have been sent on a private flight to Washington,” confirmed Berta Valle, wife of the imprisoned opposition member Félix Maradiaga, who affirmed that the US State Department made available to the relatives of the imprisoned opponents, and now released, a phone number for them to contact.

The names of those released have not been released.

The former Nicaraguan ambassador to the OAS, Arturo McFields, who went over to the opposition when he was in office in Washington, told

that "

“This does not erase the 350 murders of the dictatorship.

We must not lose sight of it, it continues to be a dictatorship in which there are no free elections, Ortega decides who dies, decides who is imprisoned or released.

There are no human rights organizations, there is no freedom of expression, there are no separations of powers.

We can't lose sight of that."

McFields stressed that

but since there is no democracy they must leave.

In a normal country they should return home to embrace their children with a state that guarantees their rights.

They leave their country because there are no guarantees of respect for human rights.

These problems continue to be there before a Latin American left that is oblivious and submissive to the terrible violations of human rights.

to human rights violations”.

The former Nicaraguan ambassador highlighted that at the recent CELAC meeting in Buenos Aires “there was no mention of the release of prisoners in Nicaragua.

We are living in difficult times in terms of democracy and the best photograph of this is CELAC”.