By GLENN GARVIN
             Herald Staff Writer

             MANAGUA -- Former Nicaraguan leader Daniel Ortega should stand trial on
             charges that he sexually abused his young stepdaughter, President Arnold Aleman
             said.

             Breaking six months of official silence on the case, Aleman said in an interview
             with The Herald that the accusations against Ortega have not only damaged
             Nicaragua's image around the world but ``filled the Nicaraguan people with
             anxiety,'' and only a court can determine if they're true or false.

             Ortega's stepdaughter Zoilamerica Narvaez earlier this year accused him of
             sexually abusing her for 19 years, beginning when she was 11. But the rape
             charges she filed in May have been stalled in court while Nicaragua's congress
             decides whether Ortega, the head of the opposition Sandinista party's legislative
             bloc, enjoys parliamentary immunity.

             A vote on the question could come as early as this month, and Aleman told The
             Herald that, if he were a congressman, he would vote to lift Ortega's immunity.

             ``I'd vote against him,'' Aleman said. ``I'd vote to end his immunity, so he goes to
             court to show clearly whether the accusations of his stepdaughter Zoilamerica are
             true or false.''

             Aleman, however, said he would not order congressmen from his Liberal Alliance
             coalition to vote against Ortega.

             ``I haven't said anything to my congressmen because I believe in their free will and
             their right to choose,'' he said. ``I've told them only that as Liberals they must
             maintain high civic and moral principles, and that this is a test for them. But I'm not
             inclined to ask them to vote for a particular position. . . . They have full freedom to
             choose.''

             Aleman's long silence over the case, coupled with the fact that Ortega's criticisms
             of the government have softened considerably over the past few months, has led
             many political commentators here to suspect that the two men had struck a deal.
             But Aleman dismissed that with a single word: ``Never.''

             ``I won't do absolutely anything behind the backs of the people,'' he said. ``At no
             moment is any pact going to be made.''

             The president said that, even if the charges against Ortega prove unfounded, there
             is cause for alarm about the amount of sexual abuse against Nicaraguan children.
             Twenty years of civil war and social upheaval here, he said, have taken a heavy
             toll on the moral foundations of the family.

             ``The reason people are full of anxiety about this is because, if it turns out to be
             true, it's nothing new,'' Aleman said. ``It won't be the first or the last shameful,
             embarrassing case. . . . It will just be more wear and tear on the structures of the
             family here.''

             Ortega has denied his stepdaughter's charges, but has also refused to waive his
             claim of parliamentary immunity. A conviction on the rape charges could bring him
             as much as 20 years in prison.

             The immunity claim hasn't damaged his standing within the Sandinista party, where
             he retains a tight grip on power, but it is doing serious damage to Sandinista
             relations with U.S. and European support groups who do much of the party's
             fundraising.

             Last month, a British group called the Nicaragua Solidarity Campaign canceled an
             invitation to Ortega to attend its 20th anniversary celebration later this year.
             Ortega's refusal to confront his stepdaughter's charges ``gives the impression that
             political convenience has supplanted fundamental values,'' the British group said.