The dawn silence was broken at Jaime Navarrete's home in a quiet neighbourhood of Managua, Nicaragua, when government thugs crashed through his door, beat him to the ground and looted his house.

A stone's throw from the site of fierce clashes between protesters and forces loyal to the one-time socialist revolutionary president Daniel Ortega, Mr Navarrete, 30, was seemingly paying for his attendance at mass marches that swept the country earlier this year.

After his thrashing he was bundled into a white pick-up truck and swiftly delivered to the police. Over the next few days, he was tortured in El Chipote prison, a now infamous jail for protesters and dissenters locked up in arbitrary detention during the six-month civil movement that threatened - but ultimatum failed - to bring down Nicaragua’s government.

Between April and June, hundreds of thousands marched in cities across Nicaragua, while others established roadblocks in an attempt to force expedited elections and topple an increasingly autocratic leader.

The response - detailed in a new report on torture by Amnesty International on Thursday - was brutally efficient.

In a process nicknamed ‘Operation Clean-Up’, the government unleashed squadrons of masked gunmen – the same forces that kidnapped Mr Navarrete – who worked with police to clear the barricades and kill hundreds that stood in their way.