Human Rights Watch denounces irregularities in Jeanine Áñez’s arrest warrant in Bolivia

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – José Miguel Vivanco, Human Rights Watch’s director for the Americas, on Friday challenged the arrest warrant for Bolivia’s ex-interim president, Jeanine Áñez, and 5 of her former ministers in the case investigating the alleged coup against Evo Morales in November 2019.

Vivanco pointed out on Twitter in a post that included photos of several pages of the arrest warrant, that the arrest warrant against the ex-interim president “does not contain any evidence that she has committed the crime of terrorism.” Therefore, it raises well-founded suspicions that this is “a politically-motivated proceeding.”

And, in a second tweet, he added: “The arrest warrants against Áñez and her ministers claim -just like that of Evo Morales in 2020- the vague concept of ‘terrorism’ that lends itself to arbitrariness. In 2020 we asked for the charges against Morales to be dropped for that very reason.”

“Any serious crime, including conspiracy to commit a coup, requires a serious and independent investigation that respects due process and brings those responsible to justice,” concluded the director of the renowned human rights NGO.

A Bolivian prosecutor’s office on Friday ordered the arrest of Áñez and 5 of her ministers, two of whom have already been detained: the ex-Minister of Energy Ministry Rodrigo Guzmán, and the ex-Minister of Justice Álvaro Coimbra.

Arturo Murillo (Minister of Government), Yerko Nuñez (Public Works, Services and Housing, and Presidency), Luis Fernando López (Defense) are the other ministers targeted by the order in the case investigating the alleged coup against Evo Morales in November 2019.

“The political persecution has begun. The MAS has decided to revert to the dictatorship ways. A shame because Bolivia does not need dictators, it needs freedom and solutions,” Áñez expressed on Twitter, in which she also attached the complaint against her.

Specifically, the complaint accuses the former officials of the crimes of terrorism, sedition and conspiracy. The complaint was lodged by ex-deputy of the Movimiento Al Socialismo (MAS) Lidia Patty, who accused Luis Fernando Camacho, governor of Santa Cruz and candidate in last year’s presidential elections in which Luis Arce won, of instigating, along with his father and several military and police commanders, the protests that led to Morales’ ousting.

The charges are virtually the same as those that, during their time in power, the then officials pinned on Evo Morales and for which the arrest of the ex-president was ordered in December 2019.

However, by the time the order was released – in December 2019 – Morales was already settled in Argentina, whose authorities stated that he had “refugee status” and that they would not accept to extradite him.

The measure was revoked in October 2020, a week after Luis Arce, Morales’s protégé, won by a wide margin in the country’s presidential elections. However, at that time the judge in the case clarified that this did not imply that the investigation would be dropped.

Since his resignation from the presidency, Morales has always argued that he had been the victim of a coup.

Source: infobae