In addition to being sentenced to more than 26 years in prison, Álvarez was permanently stripped of his citizenship and citizen rights.
On July 4, various human rights advocates stated that the dictatorship and representatives of the Catholic Church in Nicaragua held negotiations to allow the release and deportation of the prelate.
The Nicaraguan news media El Confidencial reported the next day that the talks had failed and that Álvarez once again had been returned to his maximum security cell in the Jorge Navarro prison, known as “La Modelo,” one of the oldest and most overcrowded prisons in the country where the regime’s political prisoners are sent.
The auxiliary bishop of Managua, Silvio Báez, who has been living in exile in Miami since 2019 due to persecution from the Ortega dictatorship, tweeted July 5 that his brother in the episcopate would only agree to leave Nicaragua if “the Pope ordered him to” because “a pastor bishop doesn’t go far away from his people because a dictatorship imposes it on him.”
In his July 6 statement, Smith stressed that Álvarez “ is a compassionate and honorable servant of God’s people who continues to so bravely and selflessly advocate for other innocent victims who are also being persecuted by the brutal Ortega regime, including his brother priests who remain imprisoned.”
Previously, in a letter dated June 5, Smith asked Ortega to be allowed to visit Álvarez.