The US Treasury Department sanctioned five senior Nicaraguan officials Thursday, accused of leading key financial, communications and military bodies that enable the "Murillo-Ortega dictatorship to repress its people."
The agency accused the government of co-Presidents Daniel Ortega and his wife Rosario Murillo of carrying out a campaign since 2018 that "unjustly detained and killed political opponents, carried out extraterritorial killings, silenced independent media and forced journalists into exile" while consolidating an "illegitimate grip on power."
Among those sanctioned are Retired Maj. Gen. Denis Membreno Rivas and former Police Chief Commissioner Aldo Martin Saenz Ulloa. They led the Financial Analysis Unit as director and deputy director, respectively, since its establishment in 2012. Also designated are Labor Minister Johana Vanessa Flores Jimenez, appointed in August; Celia Margarita Reyes Ochoa, deputy director general of the state telecommunications body since 2023; and Maj. Gen. Leonel Jose Gutierrez Lopez, who headed the army's military intelligence directorate for more than a decade.
"The Murillo-Ortega dictatorship has continued its domestic and international campaign of repression and tyranny to intimidate, stifle, and undermine peaceful political opponents and dissenters," said Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, vowing to continue holding the regime accountable.
The State Department said the five officials had "incited regional instability through the dictatorship's consolidation of power and ongoing abuses against the Nicaraguan people," vowing to use "all available diplomatic and economic tools" to address threats to US national security in the hemisphere.
It renewed demands for the immediate and unconditional release of all political prisoners in Nicaragua.
The action follows a separate US designation last week of the director of Nicaragua's largest prison for his involvement in human rights abuses against political detainees.
Nicaragua's government did not immediately respond to the sanctions.
