Bolivian Prosecutor’s Office Accuses Ex-President Anez of Genocide

LA PAZ (Sputnik) - The Bolivian general prosecutor’s office brought charges of genocide against Former President Jeanine Anez, who is currently in pre-trial detention over a coup, prosecutor Juan Lanchipa said on Friday.

The police arrested Anez in March on suspicion of terrorism, sedition and conspiracy in the alleged coup.

"The General Prosecutor’s office informs that [it] has presented to the Supreme Court today an indictment against citizen Jeanine Anez Chavez for actions preliminarily qualified as genocide, causing heavy injures and medium injures as well as injures that led to death," the prosecutor told journalists.

The prosecutor’s office requested the court to ask the parliament as soon as possible to permit the process, Lanchipa added.

The charge is based on a report by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights investigating the crackdown on protests in 2019 during Anez's rule. The commission considered the actions of the law enforcement officers as a massacre, confirming that at least 37 people were killed and hundreds injured, while most of them were civilians protesting against Anez.

In November 2019, Evo Morales resigned as president and left Bolivia under pressure from the military. The power was assumed by Anez, who was the opposition vice-speaker of the senate at that time.

Morales called the events a coup.

In 2020, however, Luis Arce from Morales’ Movement for Socialism party won the presidential election.