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The prosecutor said the decision to remove her was motivated by her attempt to execute an arrest warrant against the former president.
The departmental prosecutor of the Bolivian region of Tarija, Sandra Gutiérrez, denounced this Wednesday that the head of the Public Ministry fired her from her position and ordered the suspension of an arrest warrant against former President Evo Morales (2006-2019) in an investigation for alleged human trafficking.
The case was in the preliminary stage and the victim was a 15-year-old teenager from a province in Tarija, according to prosecutor Gutiérrez.
Speaking to local media, he said that a commission of prosecutors had already been formed to begin the investigation and execute the arrest warrant against the former president.
However, upon notification of a freedom action, issued in the city of Santa Cruz de la Sierra, the protection was granted and the procedure was left without effect and then an instruction arrived from Sucre where Juan Lanchipa ordered “to drop the case” because the Specialized Prosecutor’s Office for Gender and Juvenile Crimes would take charge of the investigation.
According to Gutiérrez, the document instructed him, in addition to collaborating with the case, to “render null and void any provision issued that contravenes this instruction,” that is, to dissolve the commission he had already appointed.
“If I did not comply (with the instructions) I have already been threatened with criminal and disciplinary proceedings, and I have also been attacked and disciplinary proceedings have been opened against me,” he denounced.
Gutiérrez also questioned Lanchipa’s alleged impediment to the development of the investigation under his jurisdiction in Tarija by issuing the directive ordering him to dissolve the commission of prosecutors.
“(The Attorney General’s Office) has come to prevent, to undo this formation and to stop absolutely all the investigations that we were carrying out,” he lashed out.
From the capital of Santa Cruz, the former Minister of Government, Carlos Romero, denounced that, after the march to the seat of government in the past few days, a “vicious” judicial persecution against the former president began in different regions of the country.
He mentioned among them, one in El Alto for public incitement to commit a crime, promoted by Melania Torrico, another by the Bolivian Highway Administration (ABC) for economic damage to the State after the march to La Paz and another in Tarija, with an arrest warrant, for statutory rape and human trafficking opened on September 26.
Romero described the criminal proceedings against Morales as “arbitrary” because he had led a protest demanding economic demands over the fuel and dollar crisis.
