RELIGION

Ex-Sandinista says Nicaragua's ruling party persecuting him

Associated Press
Published | Updated

FILE - This Aug. 29, 2008 file photo shows poet and Catholic priest Ernesto Cardenal in his home while under house arrest, in Managua, Nicaragua. Cardenal, who once served in Nicaragua's Sandinista government, claims the party is persecuting him, after he was hit with an $800,000 judgment in a lawsuit. The judgment against the 92-year-old Cardenal came in a lawsuit by a manager of a nonprofit group run by Cardenal until 1999. (AP Photo/Esteban Felix, File) (The Associated Press)

FILE - This Aug. 29, 2008 file photo shows poet and Catholic priest Ernesto Cardenal in his home while under house arrest, in Managua, Nicaragua. Cardenal, who once served in Nicaragua's Sandinista government, claims the party is persecuting him, after he was hit with an $800,000 judgment in a lawsuit. The judgment against the 92-year-old Cardenal came in a lawsuit by a manager of a nonprofit group run by Cardenal until 1999. (AP Photo/Esteban Felix, File) (The Associated Press)

A Roman Catholic priest and noted poet who once served in Nicaragua's Sandinista government claims the party is persecuting him, after he was hit with an $800,000 judgment in a lawsuit.

Ernesto Cardenal split with President Daniel Ortega's Sandinista party in the 1990s, after accusing Ortega of monopolizing power.

The judgment against the 92-year-old Cardenal came in a lawsuit by a manager of a nonprofit group run by Cardenal until 1999. The manager claimed damages and pay, saying her employment contract was violated.

The lawyer who filed the suit represented Ortega when his step-daughter accused him of sexual abuse in 1998.

Cardenal wrote on his Facebook page that "political persecution is unceasing on the part of a judicial apparatus that is at the orders of the current government's political interests."