After months of slugging it out in court, the Bolivian ex-president Jeanine Anez has been slammed with a 10 years prison sentence which comes more than a year after her arrest for an alleged plot to oust her rival and predecessor Evo Morales.
Anez, who has been held in pre-trial detention since March 2021, has consistently denounced what she calls political persecution.
Read Also: Bolivian Ex-President Anez Sentenced To 10 Years In Prison
The former interim leader will serve 10 years in a women’s prison in La Paz, the administrative capital’s First Sentencing Court announced in a decision that comes three months after her trial began.
Convicted of crimes “contrary to the constitution and a dereliction of duties,” Anez was sentenced to “a punishment of 10 years” over accusations stemming from when she was a senator, before becoming president.
Prosecutors had asked for a 15-year jail sentence.
The former leader had already announced she would appeal if convicted, saying: “We will not stop there, we will go before the international justice system.”
Also sentenced to 10 years were the former head of the armed forces, William Kaliman, and the former head of the police, Yuri Calderon, both of whom are on the run.
Anez still faces a separate, pending court case for sedition and other charges related to her short presidential stint.
At the start of her presidency, Anez had called in the police and military to restore order. The post-election conflict caused 22 deaths, according to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR). For that, Anez also faces genocide charges, which carry prison sentences of between 10 and 20 years.
Right-wing Anez became Bolivia’s interim president in November 2019 after Morales, who claimed to have won a fourth consecutive term as president, fled the country in the face of mass protests against alleged electoral fraud.
The Organization of American States (OAS) said at the time it had found clear evidence of voting irregularities in favor of Morales, who had been in power for 14 years. Many potential successors to Morales — all members of his MAS party — also resigned and fled, leaving opposition member Anez, then vice-president of the Senate, next in line.
Virtually unknown, the lawyer and former television presenter proclaimed herself interim president of the Andean nation on November 12, 2019, two days after Morales’ resignation.
The Constitutional Court recognized Anez’s mandate as interim, caretaker president, but MAS members disputed her legitimacy.
