MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Bolivia: Judge allows Áñez's hospitalization

Protesters at the prison gates delayed Áñez's hospitalization

Former Bolivian interim President Jeanine Áñez has been hospitalized “in critical condition” due to a hunger strike she began ten days ago, according to her lawyers.

Áñez is under preventive arrest while she is being tried for violating the Constitution to reach the presidency as well as for crimes against humanity while at the helm of the country.

Judge Franklin Siñani had allowed Áñez be transferred from the Miraflores prison to La Paz's Hospital de Clínicas “until [her] health is restored.” But according to the magistrate's ruling it was up to prison authorities to have Áñez transferred to the medical facility.

However, groups of protesters allegedly linked to the ruling Movement Towards Socialism (MAS) held demostrations outside the Jailhouse which delayed Áñez's transfer to the hospital. The protesters identified themselves as “victims” of Senkata (one of the crimes against humanity for which Áñez is on trial) and attacked Áñez's daughter Carolina Ribera at the prison gates.

“My mother is alone and faint, harassed by the prison governor who prevents her transfer to the hospital, as the judge ordered! They beat me out of the prison, hordes of officers push my mother's lawyer and me. !” Rivera tweeted.

Bolivia's daily El Deber also highlighted police officers did nothing against the protesters who shouted that they would not let the former president, Jeanine Áñez, leave.

“She is in critical condition,” Norka Cuellar, one of Áñez’s lawyers told reporters. Cuellar also explained the former interim president “became unbalanced” during a virtual hearing Thursday, despite “five doctors trying to put her in a suitable state for the hearing to continue.”

By the time Áñez was arrested, she already suffered from health problems such as high blood pressure and depression, for which she even self-injured her arm, stating that she no longer wanted to live.

Áñez has insisted she was a political prisoner in a country going through “an almost medieval and totalitarian age.”