Country Reports on Terrorism 2008 - Nicaragua

In 2008 Nicaragua made no substantive progress towards establishing a Financial Intelligence Unit or on a counterterrorism bill first proposed in 2004. Nicaragua's judiciary remained highly politicized, corrupt, and prone to manipulation. President Daniel Ortega's 2007 decision to grant Iranian nationals visa-free entry into Nicaragua remained in effect.

President Ortega maintained close relations with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). On March 6, President Ortega broke diplomatic relations with Colombia for 24 hours following Colombia's March 1 military action against a FARC base in Ecuador. Nicaragua also publicly welcomed survivors of the March 1 Colombian military operation against the FARC and granted asylum to suspected FARC operatives:

• On April 19, President Ortega personally met Lucia Andrea Morett Alvarez and her parents on their arrival in Nicaragua. Morett, a Mexican university student, suffered injuries during the March 1 Colombian military operation against FARC personnel in Ecuador. According to the Nicaraguan Foreign Ministry, Morett was in Nicaragua as a tourist. She was never offered, nor did she request asylum or Nicaraguan citizenship.

• On May 11, President Ortega sent a Nicaraguan Air Force plane to Ecuador to retrieve two Colombian survivors of the March 1 operation, Doris Torres Bohórquez and Martha Pérez Gutiérrez. Nicaragua granted both asylum, and on July 19, the anniversary of the Sandinista revolutionary victory, President Ortega officially welcomed them as survivors of "state-sponsored terrorism by Colombia."

• On August 19, Nicaraguan Foreign Minister Samuel Santos, confirmed that a third Colombian, Nubia Calderón de Trujillo, also known as "Esperanza," had been granted "humanitarian asylum" in Nicaragua. Santos stated that Nicaragua had responded to a request for assistance sent to the Nicaraguan Embassy in Ecuador by Calderón, who was also injured in the March 1 operation. On September 30, the U.S. Department of Justice Office of Foreign Asset Control (OFAC) named Calderón and seven other international representatives of the FARC as significant narcotraffickers under the Kingpin Act. The OFAC press release noted that, "Nubia Calderón de Trujillo was recently granted asylum by Nicaragua, even though she is a member of an internationally recognized narcoterrorist organization." Unlike Morett and the two other Colombians, Calderón did not appear in public after arriving in Nicaragua.

• In July, the local press discovered that, in late 2007, an official of the Supreme Electoral Council (CSE) issued a Nicaraguan national identity card (cédula) to a René Alberto Gutiérrez Pastrán. Gutiérrez Pastrán was actually FARC emissary Alberto Bermúdez, aka "Cojo." Bermúdez subsequently used his false identity to transit Nicaragua.