Bolivia: Jeanine Áñez could be sentenced to 30 years in prison for the 2019 coup

ez (54) took over the presidency in 2019 after the overthrow of Evo Morales. In prison, she awaits trial, accused of the coup.

Former de facto president Jeanine Ez (2019-2020) could face the maximum sentence of 30 years in prison for crimes against humanity committed in the context of the coup that toppled President Evo Morales, revealed this Wednesday the Bolivian government through Chancellor Rogelio Mayta.

“Regarding the penalties, you have to be clear, you are dealing with crimes against humanity, they have the maximum penalty. The Rome Statute establishes that an act like massacre, extrajudicial killings, deserves 30 years and for the investigation which she has and is classified as the author of crimes against humanity, she could be punishable by 30 years “ prison, estimated the chancellor.

Yesterday, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) Interdisciplinary Group of Independent Experts (GIEI) presented its report on the political crisis that began in 2019 and qualified the military and police operations ordered by the transitional executive of ez massacres, which left dozens of civilians killed and many injured.

Mayta underlined that this report establishes “clearly” that in Sacaba, Cochabamba and Senkata (El Alto) “extrajudicial executions were carried out and crimes against humanity were committed., by murdering compatriots, by leading a process of persecution, illegal detentions and torture by the state. “

Currently, he faces other processes such as constitutional rupture, sedition and violation of the Constitution.

“The one on human rights violations must be referred to the Plurinational Legislative Assembly to authorize the criminal trial by two-thirds of the votes”, said the chancellor.

He added that “if the authorization is given, the institutionalization of justice will continue” and considered that “the report of the GIEI will be important in this process so that the parliamentarians can assess whether or not to authorize this lawsuit against him”. the Sputnik news agency.

The Chancellor said that during the ez government “extrajudicial executions were carried out and crimes against humanity were committed”.

The GIEI, which operates in Bolivia, is the third group of its kind formed by the International Commission on Human Rights (IACHR), after the one that investigated the massacre of Ayotzinapa students in Mexico and political violence in Nicaragua.

ez, who is serving a preventive prison sentence, was hospitalized this morning for the third time in a week for medical examinations and returned to prison hours later., which outraged his lawyer, who insists that his health is “seriously damaged”, in dissonance with the medical reports.

“They took her out without warning the family or the defense and it was only now that they called us, when she is already entering the prison”, his defender Norka Cullar complained to the press at the gates of La Paz women’s prison.

Ez was taken early in the morning to a hospital in El Alto, a town neighboring La Paz, where she underwent cardiology and other tests requested by her relatives and the doctors who treated her last week, a source from the Directorate of Penitentiaries revealed.

Doctors at La Paz Trax Institute who examined her twice last week diagnosed her with high blood pressure and anxiety, but she was sent back to prison after finding her “totally stable”.

Cullar considered an irregularity and a health risk the transfer of the 54-year-old former governor to a hospital in El Alto, in an operation that lasted about three hours, without prior notification to his relatives and legal representatives.

Ez has been held since March awaiting trial on charges of the 2019 coup, in which Morales was forced to resign and she was proclaimed transitional president.