Type of Content
Approved Story
1
Format
Region
News Item Format
Standard
Image Caption
GETTY IMAGES
Autocurated
0
Nicaragua has released 222 of the 245 opposition prisoners it was holding.
The freed prisoners, who are critics of President Daniel Ortega, have been deported to the United States.
The US state department welcomed the move, which it said had been made "unilaterally" by the Nicaraguan government.
Among those freed are opposition politicians who had planned to run against Mr Ortega in the 2021 election but who were jailed in its run-up.
With his fiercest opponents in prison, Mr Ortega won a fourth consecutive term in the election. He has been in power without interruption since 2007.
Nicaraguan opposition sources said that those freed have been stripped of their Nicaraguan nationality and an official from the Nicaraguan judiciary described them as "traitors" who had been deported.