Bolivian court ordered four-month detention of ex-president Áñez and her ministers

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – A Bolivian court ordered on Sunday the preventive detention of ex-interim president Jeanine Áñez for four months in a prison in La Paz, as well as of two of her ex-ministers.

Criminal investigation judge Regina Santa Cruz ordered the pre-trial detention of the ex-president (2019-2020) in the Obrajes Women’s Correctional Center.

Meanwhile, ex-interim ministers Álvaro Coímbra, of Justice, and Rodrigo Guzmán, of Energy, will remain in preventive detention in the San Pedro penitentiary for the same period of time.

The hearing of precautionary measures against the three began over two hours late due to a notification that needed to be made to the accused regarding an indictment extension for flight risk.

The hearing, which lasted more than nine hours, was conducted remotely. Ex-president Áñez and her former ministers attended the hearing through their cell phones from the cells of the Special Force for the Fight against Crime (FELCC) in La Paz.

“It is complete abuse, it is all illegal, there are orders from above, everything is staged,” lamented Dalia Lima, Rodrigo Guzmán’s wife.

Áñez said that “the MAS (Movement towards Socialism, the government party) decides and the judicial system obeys,” and that she will be held in detention awaiting trial for a “coup that never happened.”

“From here I call on Bolivia to have faith and hope. One day, together, we will build a better Bolivia,” Áñez wrote on Twitter after learning of the ruling.

Meanwhile, ex-minister Coímbra also wrote on Twitter that their families are being “harassed and threatened” and argued that “whatever happened to them” is the responsibility of ex-president Evo Morales and president Luis Arce. In addition, he described himself as a “political prisoner by the MAS regime” by order of Morales and Arce.

The three are accused of the crimes of “sedition, terrorism and conspiracy” in the 2019 crisis.

The Bolivian Prosecutor’s Office had requested a six-month preventive detention for Áñez and the two ex-ministers.

Áñez was arrested in the Amazonian department of Beni early Saturday morning, while her ex-ministers were detained on Friday in the same region. They were later transferred to La Paz and pleaded silence in their informative statements.

Meanwhile, the international community’s rejection of the ex-officials’ arrests, which the European Union described as “worrying,” is growing.

“These are worrying developments that we are closely monitoring,” the European Commission warned on Sunday. “The allegations linked to the 2019 events must be addressed within the framework of a transparent judicial procedure and without political pressure, with full respect for the independence of the powers,” the note said.

Source: infobae