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Nicaragua to Free Guardsmen

United Press International

A government human rights panel said today 300 former national guardsmen jailed after Nicaragua’s revolution in 1979 will be freed this month for “humanitarian reasons” and to correct “judicial errors.”

The announcement by the government’s National Commission for the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights involved 300 former soldiers in the National Guard that served as Nicaragua’s army under former President Anastasio Somoza. Sandinista leaders and some independent observers charge that some guardsmen committed human rights abuses. But the United States contends that Nicaragua’s leftist government jails political opponents.

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