The Criminal Chamber of Bolivia’s Supreme Court of Justice has ordered an investigation into former president Evo Morales and former vice president Álvaro García Linera over alleged crimes against humanity connected to a 2009 police operation carried out during Morales’s administration.
The inquiry follows a complaint filed by opposition figures, alleging summary executions, unlawful detentions and torture in the case known as the terrorism case. Criminal Chamber president Carlos Ortega announced that the preliminary investigation would last 30 days, after which the Public Prosecutor’s Office will issue the relevant decision for this stage.
The events took place in April 2009, when a police raid on a hotel in Santa Cruz left three foreign nationals dead and two others arrested. The government accused those detained of plotting to overthrow it. The case was closed in 2020.
In 2022, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights found the Bolivian state responsible for violations of the rights to life, personal integrity and liberty, as well as judicial guarantees and judicial protection, in relation to those involved. The newly ordered investigation is not a finding of guilt against Morales or García Linera.
Sources: ANSA Mondo.