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On Friday, August 29, the Nicaraguan regime headed by Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo released the body of Attorney Carlos Cardenas Zepeda, sources tied to the Catholic Church confirmed to CONFIDENCIAL. The lawyer had been abducted from his home two weeks earlier, in one of the Nicaraguan dictatorship’s round-ups of anyone they suspect of opposing their rule.
Cárdenas Zepeda had worked at the Office of the Comptroller General of the Republic until 2016, and in 2018 he was invited by the Episcopal Conference of Nicaragua (CEN) to provide technical support during the National Dialogue.
The source from the Catholic Church that disclosed the prisoner’s death also confirmed that the family of the deceased is “very frightened.” Journalists report that they’re under continuous surveillance from the National Police.
Cardenas is the second political prisoner to die this week in the custody of the Nicaraguan dictatorship. On August 25, the dictatorship also released the body of Mauricio Alonso, taken prisoner with wife and son on July 17th, in Carazo department. His wife was released the same day, but Alonso and his son remained in a state of forced disappearance until the family was called to retrieve the body. In both cases, the dictatorship ordered a rapid burial. There is no known investigation or statement of cause of death.
Second imprisonment for Cardenas
Carlos Cardenas had already served time as a political prisoner. He was detained at his house in Ciudad Sandino, near Managua, on August 20, 2018, while arriving home after picking up his youngest daughter from school.
At the time, his family reported the abduction and threats against other lawyers defending political prisoners to the Nicaraguan Center for Human Rights (Cenidh).
Cárdenas Zepeda’s detention in 2018 occurred as he was returning from school with his youngest daughter. “He was with our daughter, who saw the armed, hooded men take her father away,” his wife denounced at the time.
Six Deaths in Custody Under the Regime
The death of Cárdenas Zepeda is the sixth of citizens and political opponents occurring while in the custody of the jailers of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo’s dictatorship in Nicaragua. The other five deceased are:
The first was Eddy Montes, a political prisoner from Matagalpa and a Nicaraguan-American, killed in a cell at “La Modelo” prison by a prison officer on May 16, 2019.
Hugo Torres Jiménez, a retired brigadier general and political prisoner under the dictatorship since June 2021, died at 73 years old on February 12, 2022, after more than two months during which the regime kept his physical location and health condition secret.
The former army chief and founder, Humberto Ortega Saavedra, died on September 30, 2024, as a political prisoner under his brother and dictator, after being under house arrest since May 19 and in total isolation since June 11.
Some human rights organizations also include a fifth case: Santos Flores, who reported sexual abuse by Ortega, was detained in 2013 and died under suspicious circumstances in “La Modelo” prison in November 2021.
Mauricio Alonso was reported dead on Monday, August 25, 2025, nearly six weeks after being captured on the night of July 17, during the raids leading up to the July 19 commemoration.
