MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Bolivia: Áñez collapses during new virtual court appearance

Áñez has been on a hunger strike for over nine days

A new hearing involving former Bolivian interim President Jeanine Áñez was adjourned Thursday as she collapsed during her virtual appearance from the Miraflores prison where she is housed.

Áñez received medical attention and was accompanied by her daughter and her lawyer Norka Cuellar, when she as shown in the video images.

The hearing, belonging to the so-called “Coup d'état I” case, was to assess Áñez's preventive detention after five months. The proceedings are to resume Feb. 21, it was decided.

The former leader was going through her ninth day of a hunger strike.

Doctor Karim Hamdan, who examined Áñez after the incident, said she was suffering from mild to moderate dehydration due to lack of food intake.

Former Bolivian President and leader of the Citizen Community (CC) Carlos Mesa tried to visit Áñez at the Miraflores Jailhouse together with Human Rights Permanent Assembly Chief Amparo Carvajal, but were denied entry on the grounds that people over 55 years of age are banned from the prison due to COVID-19 protocols.

“I want to respectfully ask former president Jeanine Áñez to end her hunger strike. She is putting her life at risk and she has to have the hope of life as such, the hope that justice will be done and that we who are out here will fight for justice to be done,“ Mesa told reporters.

He added that ”they do not want to allow our entry, neither Amparo's nor mine, in an arbitrary way the prison authorities do nothing but obsequiously comply with the orders of political power,“ Mesa said in reference to the reasons given by Miraflores authorities to keep him from meeting Áñez.

The former president insisted Áñez's arrest was ”illegal“, because there is ”no argument to justify her presence in jail, it is obvious that the MAS wants a war trophy and wants to target the former president for vendetta, for retaliation of what a democratic transition constitutional government like the one she has presided over has meant.”

Áñez went on a hunger strike, shortly before the start of the trial for the so-called “Coup II” case, which was adjourned after the judge admitted procedural errors.

Hamdan also said Áñez did “not require an intervention” for the time being, but spoke of an IV catheter to be applied to deal with the dehydration problem.

Áñez's hunger strike is aimed attracting international attention on her case so that her preventive arrest is lifted.