Juan Sebastián Chamorro
Date of birth: 1968
Arrested on: 07 June 2021
Current: In exile in the USA since February 2023

Juan Sebastián Chamorro (born 1968 in Managua) is an economist, businessman and former presidential candidate for the November 2021 elections in Nicaragua. He is the nephew of former President Violeta Barrios de Chamorro and cousin of imprisoned journalist and presidential candidate Cristiana Chamorro Barrios. Chamorro was arrested on the night of June 7, 2021, when police entered his home without a search warrant. After almost two months in pre-trial detention, he was charged with “conspiracy to undermine national integrity”. Juan Sebastián Chamorro was stripped of his citizenship and expelled from the country in February 2023, along with 221 other prisoners critical of the government. He has been in exile in the USA ever since.

Arrest and conditions of detention

Juan Sebastián Chamorro was arrested during a police raid on his home at 7 p.m. on 7 June 2021 and taken to El Chipote prison. In August 2021, he was transferred to the police building of the Directorate of Legal Assistance. The building is popularly known as “the new Chipote” because it is used to hold a large number of political prisoners due to the overcrowding of Managua’s prisons: Chamorro is currently imprisoned there along with over 150 other critics of Daniel Ortega.

Chamorro has only been allowed to receive visits from his family twice in the last four months. His family members have confirmed that he has to endure long interrogations, is isolated from other prisoners and has already lost over 15 kilos during detention due to poor nutrition.

Additional information

Juan Sebastián Chamorro is married to Victoria Cárdenas, with whom he has a daughter. He studied economics at the University of San Francisco and holds a master’s degree in economics from Georgetown University. He later received his Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. In 1997, he was appointed Director of Agricultural Policy at the Ministry of Agriculture.

As of August 2024