Nicaragua Releases 135 Political Prisoners in Deal Brokered by U.S. Government

Nicaragua released 135 political prisoners — including 13 people affiliated with an American evangelical church — on humanitarian grounds on Thursday in a deal brokered by the U.S. government, the White House announced.

The prisoners were sent to Guatemala, where they will be processed as refugees.

The prisoner release included 11 pastors from Mountain Gateway, a Texas-based evangelical missionary church that the Nicaraguan government had accused of using its nonprofit status as a cover to purchase luxury goods, property and land.

The group also included Catholic laypeople, students and others whom President Daniel Ortega of Nicaragua and the first lady and vice president, Rosario Murillo, considered a threat to their authoritarian rule, Jake Sullivan, the National Security adviser, said in a statement.

“The United States again calls on the government of Nicaragua to immediately cease the arbitrary arrest and detention of its citizens for merely exercising their fundamental freedoms,” Mr. Sullivan added.

Once in Guatemala, the former prisoners will be offered the opportunity to apply for legal ways to rebuild their lives in the United States or in other countries, Mr. Sullivan said. The Biden administration expressed thanks to the president of Guatemala, Bernado Arévalo, for his government’s cooperation in the deal and for “championing democratic freedom.”

The Mountain Gateway pastors were arrested in December after completing an eight-city evangelical crusade that cost $4 million and was attended by nearly a million people. The pastors were sentenced to 12 or 15 years in prison, and fined a total of nearly $1 billion.