The Nicaraguan dictatorship expelled 83-year-old American translator Judy Butler from the country, who was named by the local press as “Ortega’s brother’s translator” – in reference to the former commander of the Nicaraguan Army, retired general Humberto Ortega, who is under house arrest since last weekend. He is critical of his brother, the dictator Daniel Ortega, with whom he broke up in the 1990s.
In an interview with the newspaper Confidencial, Butler said that on Tuesday (21) seven police officers arrived at her house and “gave her a few minutes to pack a small suitcase, because they were going to take her to the airport to deport her”.
The translator, who had lived in Nicaragua for 41 years, asked the reason for the deportation, but received no answer. “They didn’t interrogate me, they didn’t charge me and they didn’t present a warrant. Even now, I don’t know why I was deported,” Butler said.
To Confidencial, she denied that she was “Humberto Ortega’s translator”, to whom she had only provided services twice.
She reported that, “seven or eight years ago”, she translated a book by Humberto Ortega “at the request” of former congressman Luis Humberto Guzmán, who intended to publish it through his publisher, but “the book translated into English was never published ”.
The second service was provided this month, when Guzmán approached Butler again to translate an opinion article by Humberto Ortega into English.
Butler reported that the article “supposedly would be distributed to networks of friends and contacts” of Humberto Ortega. However, it was published in the newspaper La Prensa, critical of Daniel Ortega.
The translator arrived in Los Angeles with a suitcase with “just two changes of clothes, medicines and vitamins”. She had to sleep in the terminal and after several hours traveled to San Francisco, where she was met by a nephew.
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