The United States’ indictment of former Cuban president Raúl Castro on charges of murder, conspiracy to kill Americans, and destruction of aircraft linked to the 1996 deaths of four pilots from the organization Brothers to the Rescue “could have direct implications for Nicaragua,” independent Nicaraguan analysts said.
Security analyst Javier Meléndez argued that during the presentation of the case against Castro, U.S. Attorney General Jason Reding Quiñones reportedly stated that “those who murder American citizens will not escape U.S. justice.”
According to Meléndez, that statement sets a precedent that “could have direct implications for Nicaragua.” In a post on X, the analyst cited the case of U.S. citizen Eddy Montes Praslin, who was arbitrarily detained by the Ortega-Murillo regime on October 18, 2018, amid the crackdown on civic protests, and later killed on May 16, 2019, inside La Modelo prison by prison guards during a riot.
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Proceedings in Cases Where the U.S. “Is Directly Affected”
Attorney Danny Ramírez-Ayérdiz, of the Inter-American Center for Legal Assistance in Human Rights, said that for the regime of Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo to face charges similar to those brought against Castro in the United States, “there must be a crime in which that country is directly affected.”
He pointed to the case of Nicolás Maduro, who, along with his wife, faced drug trafficking charges. Castro is now accused in connection with murder, while in the case of the Ortega-Murillo government, the killing of Eddy Montes Praslin remains a key example. Meanwhile, the United States has repeatedly accused the Nicaraguan regime of committing human rights violations, crimes against humanity, and other abuses.
On February 18, 2026, the U.S. State Department sanctioned Roberto Clemente Guevara Gómez, head of security at La Modelo prison in Nicaragua, “for his involvement in a gross violation of the human rights of a political prisoner,” whose name was not disclosed.
Opposition figure Haydée Castillo said a case against Ortega and Murillo “is relevant to universal justice” because they are considered the “intellectual authors” of crimes against humanity, as documented by the Group of Human Rights Experts on Nicaragua in its reports.
U.S. “Going One by One”
Ramírez-Ayérdiz said the indictment against Castro “is clearly a signal to Ortega,” who, he argued, “is being left without allies in the region” and signing “phantom treaties with Russia” that will ultimately be useless. The lawyer referenced the case of Maduro, who, he claimed, was arrested without intervention from his Russian or Chinese allies — a scenario he suggested could be repeated with Nicaragua’s government.
“The pressure is clear: they are going one by one, and Nicaragua, which is also in the eye of the storm, will not be left aside,” the human rights defender warned.
Ortega-Murillo Government “Concerned”
Analyst and member of the Unamos, an opposition group, Héctor Mairena, said U.S. authorities are fully within their rights to pursue legal action against Castro, but noted that “this is tied to the pressure the United States is exerting on the Cuban regime.” Any such action by either Washington or the international community against authoritarian governments, he said, “deeply concerns Ortega and Murillo.”
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“Today the Cuban regime is in a state of extreme vulnerability, severely weakened, while the Cuban people face dire conditions. The time of the Cuban regime appears to be running out,” Mairena said. “Without a doubt, this places the Nicaraguan dictatorship in a position of anxiety, vulnerability, and fear.”
According to the analyst, the Ortega-Murillo government is “a patient in intensive care,” and both the regime and the Nicaraguan opposition understand that “time has run out.”
“The dictatorship in Nicaragua, which marked 19 years in power this January, has been mortally wounded since 2018,” concluded Mairena, who is also a lawyer.
