GRANADA – Nicaraguan-Italian opposition leader Alberto Boschi fled to his native Italy after Nicaraguan judges sentenced him to a year in prison for illegally carrying a firearm and inciting violence in a trial he says was based on false charges and supported by paid-off witnesses.

“It's not worth dying in Nicaraguan prison,” Boschi said in an interview from Italy.

A member of the Sandinista Renovation Movement (MRS) party, a rival of President Daniel Ortega's ruling Sandinista Front, Boschi planned on running for mayor of Ciudad Sandino before the Ortega government banned minority opposition parties in June from participating in the Nov. 9 election.

Boschi attended a violent protest against the government's ban in which Antenor Peña, a reporter for the state-run TV channel 4, was injured with a rock. Boschi said he, too, was attacked by protestors during the march.

Boschi was prosecuted for Peña's injury and for carrying a firearm, allegations Boschi says are absurd. Boschi says he was filing a police report against his assailants in Managua when Peña was injured.

Boschi moved to Nicaragua in 1994 as a Catholic missionary and has since helped build a high school in the industrial city of Ciudad Sandino. After receiving Nicaraguan citizenship, he backed the MRS, which is filled with ranks of former Sandinistas who have fallen out with President Ortega.

“Clearly, the government of Daniel Ortega has decided to (persecute) all those who aren't aligned with him,” Boschi said. He is appealing his case in Nicaragua.

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