MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Another court case and six more months of jail for ex interim Bolivian president

Añez defense argued that involving an anti corruption magistrate, besides the criminal magistrate, was only an excuse to prolong the ex president's jail term (Pic EFE)

Bolivian ex-president Jeanine Añez will have to spend at least a whole year in jail since a Judge this week extended her preventive imprisonment for another six months when she is about to complete her first half-year of reclusion in a La Paz detention center.

An anti-corruption magistrate decided on the extra six months in the case identified as “coup d'état”, while there is an ongoing investigation into events involving interim president Añez, as a consequence of the political crisis which erupted in Bolivia in 2019, forcing then president Evo Morales in his failed attempt of an unconstitutional re-re-election to flee the country when the army and police denied him support to impede street protests.

Añez defense argued that involving an anti corruption magistrate, besides the criminal magistrate responsible for the case, was only an excuse to prolong the ex president's jail term, and despite an appeal which has yet to be answered. “The competence of the anti corruption judge in this case will certainly be reviewed and force a constitutional appeal”, explained the defense, “since this decision is a clear violation of Añez human rights and guarantees”.

The former interim president also requested to meet with the UN Human Rights High Commissioner, Michelle Bachelet, but so far to no avail. Añez complains that she has been held with little or no communications with her family, suffers from depression, high blood pressure, and kidney problems, but her reiterated requests to receive proper medical attention outside prison walls, have been systematically rejected.

Añez was arrested last March at her home in Beni and has been charged of sedition and terrorism, plus other accusations such as the Sacaba and Senkata killings in 2019 described by the prosecution as genocide. Congress is also investigating the signing of an IMF credit without Legislative consent, and limiting freedom of expression. In the leading case “coup d'état”, some of her ex cabinet ministers and former chiefs of the Army and Police are also incarcerated and under investigation.