CASE FACTS
Submission to the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman, and Degrading Treatment, April 12, 2012:
Attorneys representing Jason Puracal, an American citizen wrongly imprisoned in Nicaragua since 2010, filed a petition on April 12, 2012 to request the urgent intervention of the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture and Cruel, Inhumane and Degrading Treatment or Punishment. At the direction of the United Nations Human Rights Council, a Special Rapporteur is an independent investigator appointed to examine cases around the world. Their mandate covers all countries, irrespective of whether a State has ratified the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment.
Link Petition
Link to Press Release
Submission to UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, January 18, 2012:
Jason Zachary Puracal v. Government of Nicaragua was filed in the United Nations on January 18, 2012 in New York City. Acting as his counsel in the international courts, Jason's sister Janis Puracal, along with prominent human-rights lawyer Jared Genser of Perseus Strategies as co-counsel, filed the petition in the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention. The petition urges the Working Group to find that Jason's detention is arbitrary and in violation of Nicaraguan and international laws.
Link to Petition Summary
Link to Petition Summary in Spanish
Link to Full Petition
Link to Full Petition in Spanish
Case Brief: THE WRONGFUL IMPRISONMENT OF JASON Z. PURACAL
On August 29, 2011, U.S. citizen Jason Puracal was wrongfully convicted in Nicaragua of international money laundering, drug trafficking, and organized crime despite conclusive evidence of his innocence. Jason has been sentenced to 22 years in a maximum-security prison. He was tried along with ten Nicaraguan nationals—including a man running for political office against the Sandinista government. The trial was presided over by a political appointee who was neither a judge nor a licensed attorney. The proceedings were replete with violations of Nicaraguan and International laws and revealed a striking lack of evidence. Jason has consistently maintained his innocence. He has suffered repeated violations of basic human and legal rights during his detention and imprisonment.
Jason moved from Seattle to Nicaragua in 2002 to serve in the Peace Corps. After his service, he stayed in the country and eventually became co-owner of a local RE/MAX franchise where he had been working as a sales agent. He later married a Nicaraguan woman with whom he has a four-year-old son. Shortly before his arrest, Jason passed significant background screening by the Nicaraguan government to obtain residency.
On November 11, 2010, Nicaraguan police raided Jason’s home and office. Masked officers carrying AK rifles searched his real estate office and seized company computers, files, and bank accounts. They then forced their way into Jason’s home where his 65-year-old mother—a medical doctor who was visiting from the U.S.—and his young son were sleeping. The warrantless searches of Jason’s office, home, and vehicle yielded no evidence of a crime, yet Jason was arrested, charged, and imprisoned anyway.
While the defense was summarily prohibited from accessing pretrial discovery and presenting exculpatory evidence at trial, the Prosecution’s own case effectively proved that Jason did not commit the offenses with which he was charged. Police witnesses testified that no drugs were recovered from Jason. Indeed, the prosecution did not offer a single gram of drugs from any of the defendants to support this supposed case of international drug trafficking, and there was no evidence linking Jason to the other defendants. In fact, he had never met any of them.
The prosecution also failed to establish any evidence of money laundering despite seizing hundreds of bank and financial records from Jason’s business. The prosecution’s financial “expert” testified that no money ever changed hands between Jason and the other ten defendants. The expert also testified that Nicaraguan banks red flag any suspicious banking activity and no such concerns were ever shown on Jason’s accounts. Left without evidence to support its case, the prosecution argued that the money coming in and out of Jason’s account through RE/MAX must be evidence of money laundering and drug activity because it involved large amounts. The source of the money in the RE/MAX account was, in fact, RE/MAX clients who bought and sold property in Nicaragua through this RE/MAX escrow account. The prosecution never bothered to interview those clients even thought the police seized the money in escrow belonging to the clients. The prosecution also claimed as evidence of a crime the funds deposited in Jason’s personal accounts since he moved to Nicaragua in 2002. The source of the funds from 2002-2003 was actually the U.S. government—Jason was being paid $250 a month as a Peace Corps volunteer. That money has now been determined to be evidence of money laundering by an unknowing and incompetent Nicaraguan judiciary.
Despite the gross violations of law and complete lack of evidence, Jason is serving a 22-year sentence in a deadly Nicaraguan prison for crimes he did not commit. Jason was beaten while in transit to the prison and has been denied food, water, and proper medical care. He suffered from infections caused by the inhumane prison conditions and has developed an inflammatory condition due to the lack of nutrition.
The U.S. government has acknowledged the corruption of Nicaraguan courts, and the World Economic Forum has recognized that Nicaraguan courts are among the least independent in the world, ranking 132 out of 139 nations.
Jason is fighting for his life. Visit the Take Action page to help bring Jason home.