Human rights lawyer Leyla Carolina Prado defended victims of government repression during the political and social crisis that broke out in Nicaragua in 2018[1]. She was forced into exile with her family in 2019 because she was facing death threats.
Leyla Carolina Prado was a public prosecutor for 16 years. She decided to resign in February 2016 due to her dissatisfaction with the political instrumentalisation of the institution. Since 2018, Prado has been part of a group of lawyers delegated by the Permanent Commission for Human Rights (CPDH), specialising in the legal defence of political prisoners. She has also taken on the legal defence of other persecuted colleagues, such as the well-known case of the lawyer María Oviedo, who was convicted and then expelled from the country[2], and that of the lawyer Eddy Montes Praslin, who was murdered in prison[3].
The lawyer was exposed to serious risks for defending such cases, being persecuted and besieged at the headquarters of the CPDH, the police and the public prosecutor’s office. Her car was also attacked when she was defending the case of the murder of Eddy Montes Praslin. The lawyer even explained that she had been verbally insulted in court and that she had been continually obstructed in her defence work by the Public Prosecutor’s Office.
In August 2019, the lawyer received death threats on social media, targeting her and her children. The death threats intensified, culminating in a siege by paramilitaries in September 2019, warning her that she would regret her work and leaving the word “Plomo” written outside her house, which, in the context of repression in Nicaragua, means death.
Although the lawyer was the beneficiary of precautionary measures from the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, the Nicaraguan state did not guarantee her safety and that of her family, and the lawyer had to leave the country to protect her life and that of her children. Since her exile, the lawyer has denounced the reprisals suffered by her family and friends in recent years in connection with her work defending human rights.
Nicaragua: Rights lawyer Leyla Carolina Prado forced into exile for defending political prisoners
