Questioned About ‘Plot,’ Sandinista Foe Says

Eric Ramirez, president of the opposition Social Christian Party, said Tuesday that he had been arrested by state security agents and questioned about an alleged plot against the Sandinista government.

Ramirez, 38, told a press conference he was arrested at his home Saturday afternoon and held for about four hours in a detention cell. He said he was interrogated by Commander Lenin Cerna, director of the General Directorate of State Security.

In an interview after the press conference, he said Cerna questioned him for half an hour. He said that Cerna “said there was a plot between the Social Christian Party and the Catholic Church against the Sandinista regime.”

U.S. Links Charged

He said Cerna accused the political opposition of having “close links” with the Reagan Administration, which supports the anti-Sandinista guerrillas known as contras.

Ramirez denied that his party was involved in any plot or was linked with the contras. He said he believes that the arrest was aimed at intimidating opponents of the leftist government.

The government announced last week that it was suspending several civil liberties, broadening an official state of emergency that has been in force since 1982. It said the rights being suspended, such as freedom of expression and freedom from arbitrary search and arrest, would continue to be respected except when police were investigating subversive activities.

Ramirez said he was taken in by half a dozen agents, some armed with automatic rifles. At the detention center, he said, he was fingerprinted and ordered to change into a jail uniform.

House Was Searched

While he was under arrest, he said, agents searched his house and removed party documents and personal papers. The material was returned later.

He said Cerna warned him to observe the provisions of the state of emergency and emphasized that political statements to the press were prohibited.

On Sunday, Cerna summoned two other opposition leaders to his office and gave them the same warning. They are Luis Rivas Leiva, president of the Social Democratic Party, and Eduardo Rivas, president of the Democratic Coordinating Committee. The coordinating committee is an opposition coalition that includes the Social Christians and Social Democrats.