3 charged in Nicaragua bus attacks that killed 5

MANAGUA, Nicaragua (AP) — Three men have been charged with murder and organized crime in the weekend attacks on two buses carrying supporters of Nicaragua’s governing party that left five people dead and 28 wounded, the country’s top prosecutor said Thursday.

Attorney General Ana Julia Guido alleged that the two brothers and another man accepted money to throw rocks at the buses and slow them down so gunmen could open fire. The buses were carrying members of the governing Sandinista National Liberation Front returning home from a celebration of Nicaragua’s 1979 revolution.

Guido said the attacks in northern Nicaragua had been planned two days earlier by suspects she didn’t identified.

The worst attack happened on the Pan American Highway around 1 a.m. Sunday in a community known as Las Calabazas. Two men and two women died from bullet wounds, he said.

The other attack was late Saturday north of Matagalpa on a road between the towns of San Ramon and El Jobo. One man was reported killed there.

The government supporters were heading home after Saturday’s commemoration of the ouster of the Somoza dictatorship on July 19, 1979.

Copyright 2014 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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