AA
Share
Retired brigadier general Álvaro Baltodano Cantarero has been sentenced to 20 years in prison for the alleged crime of “treason,” according to sources linked to the judiciary. As part of the sentence, authorities also ordered the confiscation of all his assets.
The former presidential advisor to Daniel Ortega from 2007 to 2022—and one of Ortega’s main political operators during the opposition years between 2000 and 2006—was sentenced on Monday, June 9, 2025, in a summary trial held via videoconference from La Modelo prison in Managua.
Álvaro Baltodano was illegally detained by agents of the Judicial Support Directorate (DAJ), who raided his home at dawn on May 14, 2025. His residence, “Los Milagros” estate, is located in the El Guapotal area of Tuma La Dalia municipality, Matagalpa. He was immediately transferred to the Jorge Navarro Penitentiary Complex, better known as “La Modelo,” in Tipitapa, Managua.
Neither the police, the prosecutor’s office, nor the government’s “co-presidency” have issued any public statements about Baltodano’s arrest or the charges against him, which sources within the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) say were issued “from above, for political reasons.”
Baltodano has been held incommunicado for 27 days, in a condition considered a case of forced disappearance. He has had no contact with family or legal counsel to represent him in the expedited trial held Monday.
Arrests of Close Associates
Four days after the arrest of Álvaro Baltodano, the police carried out a raid in northern Nicaragua and captured several citizens close to the retired brigadier general.
During that operation in Matagalpa, police arrested retired captain Aníbal Rivas Reed, former army officer Ronald Paul Leiva Silva, and other ex-military personnel—who also remain in a condition of enforced disappearance. However, the judicial source did not confirm whether any formal charges or legal proceedings have been brought against them.
“The only sentence that has been issued is in the case of Baltodano,” the source added.
Álvaro Baltodano: From the Army to the FSLN
Álvaro Baltodano was a guerrilla commander with the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) and took part in the 1979 uprising in Matagalpa as one of the leaders of the Northern Front. He joined the Sandinista Popular Army in July 1979 and held high-ranking positions during the 1980s conflict between the Contras and the Sandinista army.
He retired from the Nicaraguan Army in April 2000. After leaving the military, he became actively involved with the Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN), which was then in opposition.
Together with retired colonel Lenin Cerna—then the FSLN’s organizational secretary—and Managua mayor Dionisio Marenco (who died in 2020), Baltodano became one of Daniel Ortega’s most trusted political allies.
During the 2001 electoral campaign, Baltodano coordinated the FSLN’s electoral alliance known as the “Concertación,” and was one of Ortega’s top political strategists. In the 2006 elections, he represented the FSLN in the “United Nicaragua Triumphs” coalition.
After Ortega’s electoral victory in 2006, Baltodano was appointed president of the National Free Trade Zone Commission. Between 2009 and 2017, along with presidential economic advisor Bayardo Arce, he served as one of the regime’s key liaisons to Nicaragua’s major private business leaders, in what was officially known as the “dialogue and consensus model.”
On October 31, 2022, Baltodano was removed from his post as “Presidential Delegate Minister for Investment Promotion and Foreign Trade Facilitation,” a position he had held since January 2017.
Since leaving government in 2022, Baltodano withdrew from public political activity within the Sandinista Front.
