The oral trial against Jeanine Áñez in Bolivia is postponed 2:26
(CNN Spanish) -
Former President Carlos Mesa and the non-governmental organization Human Rights Watch (HRW) questioned the Bolivian judicial system and attributed the death this Tuesday of Marco Antonio Aramayo, former director of the Indigenous Fund, to alleged failures in that area of the State. , in a hospital in La Paz where he was in intensive care.
Aramayo had been imprisoned for more than seven years for an embezzlement that he himself denounced in 2014 for the equivalent of more than US$82.5 million.
The former interim president of Bolivia, Jeanine Áñez, presents her first statement before judges
The former official had faced more than 250 criminal proceedings for corruption during that period and was the only detainee in the case that the Prosecutor's Office was investigating for the millionaire embezzlement from the Indigenous Development Fund.
Through his Twitter account, former President Mesa accused the ruling Movement for Socialism (MAS) that "for 16 years it protected corruption and persecuted until its elimination those who denounced it", while considering Aramayo's death "a warning to the permissiveness and inaction of the whole society”.
Also on that social network, HRW senior investigator César Muñoz stated that Aramayo's death is evidence of "the ravages of the lack of independent justice."
advertising
"We are saddened by the death of Marco Aramayo. There are serious allegations of violation of due process and inadequate medical care in prison. But who is going to investigate them? Once again the ravages of the lack of independent justice are evident," Muñoz wrote.
Bolivia: We are saddened by the death of Marco Aramayo.
There are serious allegations of violation of due process and inadequate medical care in prison.
But who is going to investigate them?
Once again the ravages of the lack of independent justice are evidenthttps://t.co/G602q5siqg pic.twitter.com/hfgAo9AO7N
– César Muñoz (@_Cesar_Munoz) April 19, 2022
The Minister of Justice, Iván Lima, expressed his condolences to the family and assured that "there is a justice that has not been humane, that has not taken the necessary measures to preserve the life and health of this former state official in the first place" Lima added that the situation that has occurred is "sad" and deserves to be evaluated and reflect "deeply on how we are carrying out criminal justice."
Lima stated that "it is not possible, it is not admissible that a person has to experience the situation that Mr. Aramayo and his family have experienced."
For his part, the Minister of Government, Eduardo Del Castillo, assured that the Directorate of the Penitentiary Regime exhausted efforts to save Aramayo's life and clarified that his mailroom had "done everything possible in accordance with the national legal system," although he did not could "perform greater tasks."
"It will be the Bolivian Justice that determines what has happened to this subject," Del Castillo concluded.
Aramayo's lawyer, Héctor Castellón, announced that he will go to international bodies to denounce the death and what he considers was the mistreatment his client received.