Luis Pallais Debayle (born in 1930) is a Nicaraguan Somoza-era politician and cousin of President Anastasio Somoza Debayle. [1] He was a close collaborator of Somoza. [2]
Pallais was born in 1930 [2] [3] in the city of León, as a son of lawyer Noel Ernesto Pallais and Margarita Debayle Sacasa. [2] He graduated from a US institution as an engineer, but never practiced his profession. [2] After the graduation, he returned to Nicaragua, and the Anastasio Somoza Debayle appointed him as director of the family newspaper Novedades, [1] which he led until the end of Nicaraguan Revolution. [2]
Pallais was also spokesperson of the Nationalist Liberal Party. [1] He was later elected to the National Congress of Nicaragua, [2] and elected president of the Chamber of Deputies of National Congress from 1976 to 1978. [4] He was one of the deputies kidnapped in Commander Edén Pastora's successful Operation Chanchera to storm the National Palace on 22 August 1978. [2]
Pallais was with Anastasio Somoza Debayle until the last moments of Nicaraguan Revolution in July 1979, when he hastily left the country [2] on the same plane as Somoza. He relocated to Miami with reportly large amount of money. [2] He married first Thelma Sevilla, and later Nadia Leets (Miss Nicaragua International), with whom he has had several children, who are reportly living in a gilded exile in Miami. [2]