"We were getting ready to sleep when they came to the cells and told us + take off your uniform and put on these civilian clothes +", told AFP Mr. Holmann, detained in Nicaragua since August 2021 and released by the government of Nicaragua. 'Ortega on the night of Wednesday to Thursday, alongside more than 200 political prisoners who were deported to the United States in stride.

"We were taken to an area with bigger cells and they put a dozen people in each," he continues.

"We were happy to be able to see each other, hug each other, talk to each other," adds Mr. Holmann, 56, because in the prison of El Chipote where he was incarcerated, "it was forbidden to communicate with people from other cells".

The manager of the Nicaraguan opposition newspaper La Prensa, Juan Lorenzo Holmann, makes a call to Hernon in Virginia in the United States, on February 9, 2023, after his release from prison © ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS / AFP

The list of prohibitions was as long as your arm: no reading, not even the Bible, no calendars, no communication, even if the restrictions on visits had been relaxed a little since December, he specifies.

In the cell, "we had no idea of ​​the time, we stayed for a long time and, finally, they took us to buses", he explains.

There, he sees his cousins ​​pass, the journalist Cristiana Chamorro, ex-candidate for the presidency of Nicaragua and his brother, the former minister Pedro Joaquin Chamorro Barrios, placed in different vehicles.

"On the bus, we weren't allowed to speak, there was a hooded policeman," he recalls.

"In my mind, there were two options: either they took us to court to serve us with some sort of sentence, or to Modelo prison."

But when the bus passes the court buildings, a third option comes to mind.

"By this road, we go either to the prison or to the airport".

His third hypothesis is correct.

"God heard us," he breathes.

"You are being expelled"

"A manager got on the bus with a kraft envelope and told us: + You are being expelled, I will circulate a sheet that you must sign by accepting the conditions +", relates Mr. Holmann.

On this document, it was written: "I agree to be deported to the United States in accordance with the terms of the law".

"For me, it's a banishment," he says.

Agents from the US State Department then give each released detainee a new Nicaraguan passport.

That of Mr. Holmann, consulted by AFP, expires in February 2033.

A few hours later, the ex-detainees learned that they would be stripped of their Nicaraguan nationality, under a law passed on first reading by the Nicaraguan parliament on Thursday.

Former Nicaraguan presidential candidate Cristiana Chamorro (left), her brother former minister Pedro Joaquín Chamorro (centre) and the manager of the opposition newspaper La Prensa M. Holmann (right), on the plane that brought them to the United States, February 9, 2023 © - / La Prensa/AFP

While "it is prohibited by the Constitution", underlines Juan Lorenzo Holmann Chamorro.

The American authorities have promised the released prisoners medical and legal assistance as well as a residence permit for an initial period of two years.

One of Mr. Holmann's daughters picked him up in Washington with other family members, but his wife is still in Nicaragua.

He hopes that she can join him in the United States with the help of the American government.

- "Tireless fight for freedom of expression" -

"Nicaraguans must find common ground to succeed in restoring democracy and forming a Republic," he said.

As for the newspaper La Prensa, the dictator Anastasio Somoza and the Sandinistas in the 80s wanted to destroy it and now Daniel Ortega wants to appropriate it, but they have not managed to silence him, "nobody could neither do they," asserts Juan Lorenzo Holmann Chamorro.

"We are going to celebrate 97 years of tireless struggle for freedom of expression, to relay the opinion of Nicaraguans, to be the voice of those who have none", assures the manager of the daily.

"La Prensa is always standing and must not kneel".

Mr Holmann, who lost 18 kg in prison, says he wants to go to a church "to thank God" because "faith saved him".

He now sees life in a new light.

In prison, "I learned the true value of freedom of expression and even if it seems cliché. I have more awareness of the importance of the love of my family, more attachment to the light of the sun , to the air and the fact that no matter where we are, there is always someone in a worse situation than us”, he concludes.

© 2023 AFP