03/14/2021 11:43 AM
Clarín.com
World
Updated 03/14/2021 11:43 AM
The Bolivian Prosecutor's Office requested this Sunday
six months in jail
for the former right-wing president Jeanine Áñez and two of her ministers, captured on Saturday in an investigation for an alleged coup against former president Evo Morales in 2019, according to an accusation to which he had access the AFP.
From the cell where yesterday she expected to be transferred from the department of Beni to La Paz, Añez wrote two letters
addressed to the European Union (EU) and the Organization of American States (OAS)
requesting "the sending of official missions to verify the context in the one that she and two of the ministers of her government (µlvaro Coímbra and Rodrigo Guzmán) were arrested.
Three prosecutors signed the indictment for the application "of precautionary measures consisting of preventive detention [...] for a period of six months" in La Paz prisons, the document says.
Áñez has been detained in a police station since Saturday.
The main right-wing opposition parties, which deny that there was a coup in November 2019,
condemned the arrest
and demanded that Áñez be tried by Parliament and not by ordinary courts.
The Justice Minister rejected Áñez's accusations of "political persecution", said that the process is in accordance with the law and that the former president and former senator
is entitled to a trial before an ordinary court.
The UN, the United States and the European Union (EU)
requested that due process guarantees be respected
and that all legal procedures be transparent.
AFP photo
Áñez assumed the presidency in November 2019,
following the resignation of Morales
in the midst of a strong social upheaval after opponents denounced a fraud in the previous month's elections in which the MAS leader sought to be re-elected.
The allegations of fraud
sparked street protests
and a police riot, and in the midst of this upheaval, the Armed Forces made a "suggestion" to Morales, in power for 14 years, to resign.
Morales, from the Movimiento Al Socialismo (MAS) party, left in exile in Mexico, moved to Argentina a month later as a refugee and returned to his country in November 2020,
after the presidential election won by Luis Arce
, his former Minister of Economy.
Áñez, 53, was arrested yesterday morning in Trinidad, capital of the Amazon department of Beni, 600 kilometers northeast of La Paz.
Other arrests
Like Áñez, his former ministers of Justice, Álvaro Coimbra, and of Energy, Rodrigo Guzmán, were also detained in Trinidad, and
all were transferred by plane to La Paz
, to be questioned by the Prosecutor's Office.
The Prosecutor's Office published the formal accusation for
"sedition, terrorism and conspiracy"
against the three detainees and requested that Áñez remain in preventive detention for at least six months, while the investigation lasts.
The Prosecutor's Office argues that if the accused are free,
there is a danger of flight
because they could leave the country, but they could also influence other parties or witnesses.
The request, which must be resolved by a precautionary judge in the course of the next few hours, includes former ministers Álvaro Coímbra and Rodrigo Guzmán, for whom detention in a penitentiary is requested, reported the newspaper El Deber.
The indictment affirms that Áñez assumed the Presidency
in a "rigged way"
considering that at that time she was still second vice president of the Senate and rejecting that she had been elected president of the Senate hours before.
Áñez
is detained in the cells of a police barracks
and was transferred for a few hours to the Prosecutor's Office, but she accepted the right to silence and was returned to the uniformed unit.
Áñez's name appears in a complaint that former MAS deputy Lidia Patty made last December against the civic leader of the wealthy Santa Cruz region, the right-wing Luis Fernando Camacho, governor-elect of the department in recent local elections.
The lawsuit includes five former ministers of Áñez, police and military chiefs and civilians.
The Minister of Justice, Iván Lima,
rejected opposition complaints
that there is a political management of the prosecution and indicated that it is acting on the right.
He explained that Áñez is not entitled to a judgment of responsibilities or privilege, due to his condition as ex-governor, but an ordinary process for his actions as a senator, before having assumed the first magistracy.
A trial of privilege means that the Attorney General's Office asks Parliament to authorize the trial and then develop the process before the Supreme Court of Justice.
Áñez's arrest prompted the High Representative of the European Union (EU), Josep Borrell, to say from Twitter that "the accusations for the events of 2019
must be resolved within the framework of transparent justice and without political pressure."
Stéphane Dujarric, spokesman for the UN Secretary General, António Guterres,
asked to maintain the guarantees of due process
and full transparency in all legal procedures. "
The Acting Undersecretary for the Western Hemisphere of the United States Department of State, Julie Chung, yesterday requested on Twitter that Bolivia defend all civil rights and guarantees of due process of the American Convention on Human Rights and the principles of the Inter-American Democratic Charter.
Source: AFP, ANSA and Europa Press
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