WORLD : 1,900 Somoza Ex-Guardsmen Freed
Almost 1,900 members of former dictator Anastasio Somoza’s national guard were pardoned today in the biggest prisoner release in the nation’s history.
The pardon fulfilled one of Nicaragua’s commitments under a Central American peace accord signed in El Salvador last month. “To give effect to the El Salvador accord it is necessary to grant a pardon to the ex-guardsmen who were justly imprisoned for crimes against the Nicaraguan people,” said a presidential pardon read by Information Minister Manuel Espinoza at a ceremony in Managua’s Tipitapa Prison.
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