The former temporary president of Bolivia Jeanine Áñez was sentenced last Friday to 10 years in jail for breach of duties and resolutions contrary to the Constitution when he assumed political office in 2019 in the midst of a social and political crisis.
After deliberating for more than eight hours, the First Sentencing Court of La Paz determined that Áñez serve her sentence in the Miraflores prison where she has been held preventively for more than a year.
The Court also announced a sentence of 10 years in prison against former Armed Forces Commander Williams Kaliman and former Police Commander Yuri Calderon, whose whereabouts are unknown.
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How was the decision made?
On the morning of this Friday, the judges of the court went to the jail to take Áñez’s last statement and then did the same in the prison where two former military chiefs accused of helping the former transitory president come to power are located.
With these proceedings, the court closed the debate phase of the trial and after 2:00 p.m. local time (6:00 p.m. GMT) the judges announced that they would “deliberate uninterruptedly until the corresponding resolution is issued, and the procedural parties must be connected via virtual”.
Áñez had to face the trial virtually from jail, because according to the authorities it was a preventive measure due to the pandemic and then argued that there was a “flight risk”, despite the insistent requests of her defense that she could personally attend. the hearings.
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“It was not an easy government because I had the government, but I never had power, I had blockages in the Legislative Assembly, therefore it was simply a transitional government,” Áñez said in her statement before the judge.
The former interim president stated that she did not have the “ambition” to assume the Presidency and that she only fulfilled her duty and that, in her opinion, the “only ambitious” was former President Evo Morales “who did not respect the Constitution” since 2016 when he did ignored the results of a referendum that denied him aspiration to a fourth consecutive term.
Throughout the hearings, the former interim president presented several health problems, which according to the accusing party were maneuvers to delay the trial.
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your accusation
Jeanine Áñez was arrested on March 13, 2021 in an operation led by the general commander of the Bolivian Police, Jhonny Aguilera, in her native Beni and was later taken to La Paz on a military plane under strong police guard.
In principle, the Justice opened a case for the crimes of sedition, terrorism and conspiracy due to the 2019 post-election crisis that led to the resignation of then-president Evo Morales, which for the ruling party was a “coup d’état”.
This case led to the “coup d’état II” process, for which she was sentenced today.
Jeanine Áñez assumed the interim command of the country as second vice president of the Senate on November 12, 2019, two days after the resignation of Morales and all the officials in line of presidential succession, and in the midst of a political and social crisis that erupted after the elections of October of that year between denunciations of fraud in favor of the then president.