Hugo Torres Jiménez

Hugo Torres Jiménez (25 April 1948 – 11 February 2022) was a Nicaraguan Sandinista guerrilla and military leader who was a brigadier general in the Nicaraguan Armed Forces. During the Sandinista National Liberation Front effort to overthrow the Somoza family regime, Torres was the only guerrilla who participated in both the 1974 Christmas party raid that freed future President Daniel Ortega among other prisoners, and the 1978 raid on the National Palace, freeing another 60 political prisoners. In the late 1990s he became a critic of Ortega, leaving the FSLN to join the Sandinista Renovation Movement and later its successor the Democratic Renewal Union, serving as vice-president of both parties. In June 2021 he was part of a wave of arrests of opposition figures by the Ortega administration. He died the following February.

Early life Hugo Torres Jiménez was born on 25 April 1948, in Somoto, Madriz (near the Honduran border).

Education and career Torres studied law at the National Autonomous University of Nicaragua (though his passion was journalism) and like many other young dissidents, it was there that he was radicalized against the Somoza regime. He joined the FSLN in 1971 and worked in barrio mobilization in the early 1970s.

Torres was the only guerrilla who participated in both of the Sandinistas' two largest and most successful operations against the Somoza regime. Subsequent negotiations freed Sandinista political prisoners including future Nicaraguan president Daniel Ortega,

In the 1980s, Torres was honored with the Order of Carlos Fonseca, awarded to members of the government or party who demonstrated moral, ethical merit and adherence to constitutional principles.

He attained the rank of Colonel in the EPS, where he was a Brigadier General until retiring in 1998. In 2017, he published a second book, a poetry collection called Coplas y algunos poemas infiltrados. He particularly criticized Daniel Ortega's administration since the 2018 mass protests and the bloody suppression by the government.

On 13 June 2021, Torres was part of a wave of arrests of opposition leaders and civic figures by the Ortega government, beginning with the arrests of four aspiring opposition candidates for president in the 2021 Nicaraguan general election. Arrested along with Torres were the president of Unamos, Suyén Barahona, former MRS president Ana Margarita Vijil, and Unamos members and leaders Dora María Téllez and Victor Hugo Tinoco; the latter two of which, like Torres, were former Sandinista guerrillas.

Torres Jiménez Torres remained in preventive detention until the end of October 2021 and had not been able to speak privately with his lawyers, and in a period of 3 months he had barely been able to receive two visits from his relatives before his death on 11 February 2022, at the age of 73. In a press release issued the same day, the Organization of American States condemned the circumstances surrounding his death and called for the immediate release of all the country's political prisoners. Torres had three children.

His death was one of the reasons why Arturo McFields and Paul Reichler resigned, disowning Daniel Ortega.