PRISON ‘TRIAL’ UNDER WAY

Nicaraguan opposition leader Cristiana Chamorro, who has been detained since June last year while planning an election challenge to President Daniel Ortega, has gone on trial behind closed doors in her prison.

Ms Chamorro, 68, the daughter of ex-president Violeta Barrios de Chamorro, was the favourite to beat Mr Ortega in November polls that were condemned as rigged.

Mr Ortega won a fourth successive mandate after he put all his challengers in jail. The senior Chamorro is the only person to have beaten him in an election, in 1990.

Her daughter’s court case opened at a court inside El Chipote prison, where trials have been held since last month for 46 opposition figures arrested since last year.

The independent Human Rights Centre denounced an “exaggerated police presence” around the prison.