On Wednesday, June 10, 2026, the Costa Rican Prosecutor’s Office presented an accusation against the suspects in the murder of the political exile and retired major of the Nicaraguan Army Roberto Samcam, who was shot in his home, in San José, on June 19, 2025.
Sources close to the case confirmed to the newspaper The Nation that the accusation was filed before the Criminal Court; However, there are still no further details of the total number of people charged in the case.
The victim’s family has already been notified of the accusation and was assigned a “deadline to file the complaint,” according to his lawyer Federico Campos told La Nación.
Claudia Vargas, Samcam’s widow, expressed on her social networks that the accusation “represents an important step,” but acknowledged that “there is still a long way to go.”
“In one year, a complex case, with multiple people investigated and a transnational dimension, advances towards a new stage: the trial against the material executors,” Vargas warned in his publication.
The Nicaraguan added that “there is still a long way to go. But it is appropriate to recognize the work done by the Prosecutor’s Office and the OIJ, and continue to insist that justice must reach not only those who carried out the crime, but also those who planned and ordered it.”
Four suspects arrested
Although the judicial authorities keep the details of the criminal accusation under wraps, four Costa Ricans remain in preventive detention in this case.
Among those detained is Luis Fernando Carvajal Fernández21 years old, identified as the hitman who murdered Samcam, who was captured on February 10, 2026 by the Municipal Police of San Isidro de Heredia, Costa Rica.
Previously, in September 2025, the Judicial Investigation Organization (OIJ) had arrested three men and a woman as alleged accomplices to the murder. The woman was released weeks later and the men remain in preventive detention.
The detainees like alleged accomplices to the murder They are: Danilo Chaves Medina, 35 years old, arrested in Cañas, Guanacaste; Bryan Robles Salas, 23 years old, arrested in one of the raids in the León XIII citadel, in San José; and Luis Orozco González, 33 years old, detained on a public road.
Nica imprisoned in Alajuela, the connection of the murderers
The Nicaraguan also appears in the judicial file of the case Keny Hosman Navarrete Vallecillooriginally from Diriamba, Carazo, identified as the person who allegedly orchestrated with some Costa Rican hitmen the murder of the retired major of the Nicaraguan Army.
The document, dated March 6, 2026, indicates that “the perpetrators of the homicide, They executed Mr. Roberto Samcam in exchange for money, coordinating the action possibly commissioned by prisoner Keny Hosman Navarrete Vallecillo.”
The Nicaraguan, 38 years old and known under the alias “Chatel”, has been serving a sentence since 2016 for the crimes of aggravated robbery, deprivation of liberty and reception (purchase and concealment of stolen goods). He is being held in pavilion C-4 of the Jorge Arturo Montero Castro Institutional Care Center (CAI), a prison known as “La Reforma”, in San Rafael de Alajuela, northwest of San José.
“Through the telephone information obtained so far, it was possible to determine that there are a large number of calls on dates before and after the event (Samcam murder), documenting communications between some of the suspected perpetrators of the homicide and the CAI Jorge Arturo Montero Castro penal center,” the researchers conclude.
