LA PAZ, Bolivia — Bolivia’s Supreme Court on Friday ordered judges to urgently review whether three prominent right-wing leaders had been held in prison for too long without trials, threatening to reopen a tumultuous chapter in Bolivia’s politics just days after a presidential election ended two decades of dominance by the governing leftist party.
Bolivia’s Chief Justice Romer Saucedo gave judges 24 hours to scrutinize the length of pretrial detention in high-profile cases stemming from the crisis over the 2019 ouster of former President Evo Morales, Bolivia’s first Indigenous president, according to a copy of the document obtained by The Associated Press.
The order, experts say, could pave the way for the release from custody of three of Bolivia’s most divisive right-wing politicians: Former interim leader Jeanine Añez, former governor Luis Fernando Camacho and his former running mate, Marco Antonio Pumari.
After his contested reelection to an unprecedented fourth term in 2019 set off mass protests, Morales stepped down under pressure from the military, paving the way for Añez, a previously little-known senator and staunch Catholic, to assume office as interim leader.
As president, Añez oversaw a brutal crackdown by security forces on civilian protesters and stifled dissent, with at least 37 people being killed in the postelection violence.
A year after new elections in 2020 vaulted to power current President Luis Arce, Morales’ handpicked successor from his long-ruling Movement Toward Socialism, or MAS, party, Añez was arrested on charges of terrorism and sedition, among other offenses tied to Morales’ 2019 ouster which his supporters view as a coup.
In 2022, Añez was sentenced to 10 years in prison on charges of breaching her duties and violating Bolivia’s constitution but faces at least seven other open criminal cases covering a range of charges, including her involvement in the killings of protesters.
Añez appealed the sentence and contested the other charges, arguing that she should only be judged in a special impeachment process for former presidents that requires authorization from two-thirds of Congress before any trial can proceed. She is currently being tried as an ordinary citizen.
Camacho, a close ally of Añez, has been in pretrial detention since his arrest in late 2022 while leading a strike against Arce’s government in the country’s business hub of Santa Cruz. He was detained on suspicion of terrorism and insurrection over his…
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