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(CP) The Nicaraguan judiciary has convicted 11 Nicaraguan pastors linked to the U.S.-based Mountain Gateway ministry on fees of cash laundering. The case, which has induced nice controversy within the Central American nation and all through the area, additionally implicates three U.S. residents who haven’t but been arrested, in line with the prosecutor’s workplace.
The fees relate to an alleged cash laundering community that operated by wire transfers from the U.S. to Nicaragua. The fees got here simply weeks after the ministry held a sequence of huge evangelistic campaigns that organizers stated drew greater than 1,000,000 individuals in numerous Nicaraguan cities.
The sentence was handed down behind closed doorways on the Central Judicial Complex in Managua, the place the trial was held.
On Jan. 17, Nicaraguan prosecutors charged three U.S. residents and 11 Nicaraguans with cash laundering. These people had been allegedly a part of a community that used two Christian NGOs as fronts. Prosecutors allege that Americans John Britton Hancock, Jacob Britton Hancock and Casandra Mae Hancock arrange a subsidiary of Mountain Gateway Ministry in Nicaragua to obtain wire transfers from the U.S.
In January, Mountain Gateway spokesman Steve Lisby instructed Christian Daily International that “we imagine the idea of the costs are usually not appropriate. Everything that we have been required to do by the Nicaraguan authorities within the method of managing cash, we have carried out that, and we now have the documentation of that. We got here to Nicaragua ‘trigger we love the individuals and since we wish to share with them Jesus.”
The group’s legal professionals have denounced this as a case of non secular and political persecution and have requested the intervention of worldwide human rights organizations and even the U.S. State Department.
In a press launch, the ministry denounced that the accused pastors weren’t allowed to be bodily current in court docket throughout one listening to however needed to attend by way of video convention.
After studying of the decision in opposition to the pastors, the Christian authorized protection group ADF International introduced that it might take the case to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights.
“ADF International is supporting Mountain Gateway’s case and has filed a request for precautionary measures with the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights on behalf of these fraudulently convicted,” the group stated in an announcement. “ADF International has requested the Commission to demand that Nicaragua guarantee the appropriate to well being, life, and bodily integrity of the pastors throughout their keep in jail, whereas the proceedings are ongoing.”
According to ADF International, a number of members of the U.S. Senate, together with Sens. Rick Scott, R-Fla., Ted Cruz, R-Texas, Katie Britt, R-Ala., and Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala., are additionally advocating on the group’s behalf, just lately calling on the Biden administration to “implement sturdy, focused sanctions following the repeated and escalating violations of non secular freedom in Nicaragua.”
“No one is protected from spiritual persecution in Nicaragua, and it’s devastating to see the sham fees, trial and conviction of those pastors and ministry leaders who had been merely sharing their religion with and serving the residents of Nicaragua,” said Kristina Hjelkrem, authorized counsel for ADF International.
© Christian Daily International
