El Nuevo Chipote, or simply El Chipote, opened in February 2019 to replace the previous jail of the same name.
It quickly gained a reputation as a site of torture and is now housing numerous Catholic priests who were kidnapped by the police and taken there by the Nicaraguan dictatorship.
Father Oscar Benavidez of the Diocese of Siuna, Father Ramiro Tijerino, Father José Luis Diaz, Father Sadiel Eugarrios, and Father Ral González, all from the Diocese of Matagalpa, are the priests that are now housed in this jail. Darvin Leyva, Melqun Sequeira, filmmaker Sergio Cárdenas, and other seminarians were also photographed there.
With the exception of Benavidez, all the others were detained in the early hours of August 19 at the Matagalpa Chancery. At the same time, Bishop Rolando lvarez was kidnapped by members of the police force loyal to President Daniel Ortega and is currently being held under house arrest in the nation’s capital, Managua.
The building of the new jail reportedly cost the Ortega regime and his wife, Vice President Rosario Murillo, over 183 million córdobas ($5 million), according to Nicaragua Investiga online news.
According to the website, although while it was previously known that torture was being used at El Chipote, this became more obvious starting in May 2021 when the dictatorship began a fresh round of arresting political opponents, including contenders for president.
According to the Argentine daily La Nación, where the guards forbid the captives from communicating with one another, “El Chipote has become the deepest dungeon of the presidential pair, but also a cornerstone of repression.”
Mother Ana Chamorro de Holmann, 94, said that the guards virtually undressed her before she saw her son Juan Lorenzo Holmann, general manager of the newspaper La Prensa, when she went to see him.
Juan Lorenzo had heart issues and was almost completely blind.
La Nación claims that although some inmates have lights on constantly, others are always in the dark and unable to see their loved ones or attorneys.
“The alleged crimes of which they are accused — treason against the country, money laundering, and cybercrimes — are related to laws made to measure by the National Assembly, which supports Ortega in order to criminalise the opposition and are not yet reflected in the judicial system,” the Argentine newspaper reports.
Vilma Nez, the head of the Nicaraguan Camp for Human Rights, said that El Chipote should be referred to as a “torture centre” after hearing from some of the families of the political prisoners housed there.
El Chipote, in her perspective, has a morbid environment that “causes the inmates to break down and those of us on the outside, friends and relatives, to break down.”
a hell-lifer who has survived
A Nicaraguan policeman who fled along with other officers during the dictatorship’s crackdown of protests in 2018 described his experience in the torture jail to The Voice of America.
The former officer claimed that even though he brought numerous individuals to that prison and was aware of its existence, “I never thought of going through it personally.
It’s a total hell because you know that you are meeting people who have been transformed into monsters, people who have no heart, and knowing that in that place you have no way to breathe, you lack air, you lack sun, you lack everything you need as a human being.”
The former police officer, who was from Costa Rica, spoke about some of the abuse he experienced under the alias Carlos for security reasons.
He claimed, “I couldn’t sleep with my body fully tortured: they cut off pieces of my toenails, knocked out teeth, gave me electric shocks, and took my life in a manner I didn’t anticipate.”
He contemplated suicide while he was going through the pain.
He said, “They not only caught me, but they also grabbed nine other officers who defected, therefore they placed three of our fellow soldiers in that jail.”
Carlos sobbed as he added, “I had the chance to commit suicide on the seventh day, but I couldn’t discover with what or how, since I was in an inappropriate position, I witnessed two of my coworkers die in my arms, bloodied, raped.”
Only God could have kept him going when he was being tortured and in anguish.
“I felt that my body no longer had life in it as a result of the torment I endured. In those times, all I could think about was my family and doing what I had to do—giving my life to God.
I had to pray, “Here I am, grant me the courage to be able to withstand it,” the man said.