Opposition leaders fear a prison sentence handed down this week to Alberto Boschi, an Italian-Nicaraguan Catholic missionary and member of the splinter Sandinista Renovation Movement (MRS) party, sets a dangerous precedent for political freedoms under the government of President Daniel Ortega.

Critics of the Ortega government say Boschi's trial, in which he faced charges for his involvement in the injury of a reporter for the Sandinista-affiliated Multinoticias Channel 4 TV was an “outrage” and that his conviction is meant to intimidate opposition political leaders.

Though the Ortega government has drawn fire for going after dissidents in the Sandinista-controlled courts, opposition leaders say Boschi may be the first “political prisoner” sentenced by the second coming of the Sandinista government.

“He'll be a political prisoner, that's the truth,” said MRS leader Dora María Téllez, a former guerrilla leader and health minister under the first Sandinista government who has since defected from Ortega's Sandinista Front. Téllez launched a hunger strike last June to protest the government's ban on her party from participating in the Nov. 9 municipal elections, in which Boschi was to run as the MRS mayoral candidate for Ciudad Sandino.

“He's become a victim,” Téllez said of Boschi's conviction.

Boschi was convicted to six months of prison for carrying an illegal firearm and another six months for causing harm to reporter Antenor Peña, of Multinoticias. After Peña interviewed Boschi at a protest last June, the missionary allegedly told protestors to attack Peña, according to Sandinista-owned media outlets.

Though Channel 4 originally reported Peña had been shot, Police Chief Aminta Granera said investigators didn't find any bullet.

“There's no proof against me,” Boschi told reporters when he filed a complaint with the Nicaraguan Human Rights Center last month, alleging he was a victim of political persecution.

Boschi said he was attacked by Ortega supporters during the protest and filed a complaint with state prosecutors afterward. Yet instead of processing Boschi's complaint, prosecutors filed a counter complaint against him for “crimes against the state.”

Though opposition has accused Ortega of heading the country toward dictatorship, Ortega defends his rule as democratic by pointing out that under his regime there have been “no political prisoners.”

Boschi's case may change that.

The government's news Web site called Boschi a member of the “Return to Somoza Movement,” a mock of his Sandinista Renovation Movement party affiliation – labeling it sympathetic to the rightwing dictator Anastasio Somoza –and implied that he was a foreign meddler.

“Despite being a foreigner, Boschi has been seen participating in political activities,” the government site said.

Boschi, who came to Nicaragua in the 1980s and was naturalized as a Nicaraguan citizen, has said he will appeal the sentence.