Bolivian former interim President given 4 months in detention awaiting trial for coup
Mar 15, 2021
La Paz [Bolivia], March 15 (ANI/Sputnik): Bolivia's ex-interim President Jeanine Anez will be subject to four months of administrative arrest amid a coup investigation.
"... they gave me 4 months in detention awaiting the trial for a 'coup' that never happened," Anez wrote on Twitter on Sunday.
On Saturday, Bolivian police transferred Anez to La Paz for her to testify in an ongoing coup probe. She was detained overnight on suspicions of terrorism, sedition and conspiracy related to what investigators consider a coup that led to the resignation of former Bolivian President Evo Morales.
Anez has written a letter calling on the Organization of American States (OAS), as well as the European Union, to send an observer mission to Bolivia to look into what she called "unlawful political persecution" that runs contrary to international norms.
On Saturday, EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell and UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres both called for transparency and dialogue in Bolivia amid the recent events.
Morales resigned as president and left Bolivia in November 2019, under pressure from the military, after the Bolivian opposition, led by Carlos Mesa, claimed that there were mass violations during the October 2019 vote. Most of Bolivia's senior officials resigned in his wake.
Power in the country was assumed by then opposition vice-speaker of the senate, Jeanine Anez. Morales called the events a coup.
Anez arranged for a new presidential vote, which took place on October 18, 2020. The election was won by Luis Arce from Morales' Movement for Socialism party (MAS).
Morales reacted to Arce's victory by saying that the Bolivian people managed to regain political power via democracy and that it was a "great triumph of the people." Morales returned to Bolivia in November 2020 after being self-exiled in Mexico and Argentina for almost a year. (ANI/Sputnik)
