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Retired Nicaraguan Army Major Roberto Samcam was shot and killed on the morning of June 19, 2025, in his home in San Jose, Costa Rica, where he had been living in exile since 2018.
The Nicaraguan ex-military officer was declared dead at the scene of the crime by the Red Cross, according to the Costa Rican media La Teja. The victim suffered two wounds in one leg, two in the abdomen, and several more to the chest and underarms, according to information from the newspaper La Nación.
Samcam lived in a condominium in the canton (municipality) of Moravia, north of San Jose. According to sources, the hitmen entered the residential area under the pretense of delivering a package to the ex-military officer, shot him eight times inside his home, and fled on a motorcycle.
According to a report in La Nación, a man posed as a resident of the condominium, “greeted” some workers on site, walked up the stairs, and, upon reaching Samcam’s residence, shot him eight times before fleeing the scene.
The former military officer died in the doorway of his bathroom, according to the Costa Rican newspaper, citing police reports and information from the Costa Rican Red Cross.
The attack was heard by the retired major’s daughter, who was resting in a nearby room. His wife was not at home at the time.
Roberto Samcam had been outside Costa Rica for over a month and returned to the country on Monday, June 16, according to sources.
Costa Rican security forces have not yet provided official information on the attack.
Roberto Samcam, critic of the Army and the dictatorship
The retired major was a strong critic of the Nicaraguan Army for its role in the repression and killing of unarmed civilians during the 2018 protests.
The Army has denied that its troops or weapons took part in the crackdown. However, according to Samcam, many of the war weapons used in the repression in Diriamba and Jinotepe were military-grade arms that only the armed forces possessed.
“In Carazo, we saw for the first time the appearance of RPG-7 rocket launchers—those are exclusively used by the Army. Neither the Police, nor the DOEP, nor the Tapir units have that kind of weaponry. The Dragunov rifle is also for Army use only. While Police special forces might have a few, at most there could be 10 or 15 Dragunovs in the hands of the Tapir unit—the number we saw was overwhelming,” Roberto Samcam said in an interview with the program Esta Semana and CONFIDENCIAL, in July 2019.
