A retired Nicaraguan military officer turned outspoken critic of President Daniel Ortega was shot to death at his home in Costa Rica, authorities said.
Roberto Samcam, 67, had been living in exile since July 2018 when paramilitaries assaulted his home in Nicaragua. Police say a man entered the condominium complex where Samcam lived northeast of the Costa Rican capital of San Jose and shot him multiple times. The shooter escaped.
In 2020, Samcam served as chain-of-command expert for the Court of Conscience, organized by Costa Rica’s Arias Foundation for Peace and Human Progress, to collect testimony of those who suffered torture and other abuses at the hands of the government. The exercise was in part to build cases to eventually take to regional and international human rights bodies.
“We are documenting each case so that it can move on to a trial, possibly before the Inter-American Court of Human Rights,” Samcam said at the time. He said government officials were involved in the abuses.
Since crushing a wave of 2018 protests, the government has systematically pursued any voice of opposition. The government has shuttered hundreds of nongovernmental organizations and persecuted religious groups, including the Catholic church. The Nicaraguan government’s spokesperson did not immediately respond to an emailed request for comment about Samcam’s killing.
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