The Supreme Justice Court (TSJ) of Bolivia annulled on Wednesday the ten-year prison sentence against former interim President Jeanine Áñez (2019-2020) and ordered her «immediate release» in the case known as 'coup d'état II', related to the 2019 political crisis.
The judicial resolution also orders the «same day» release for the former head of state after four years and eight months of imprisonment, which must be approved by a criminal enforcement judge, TSJ President Romer Saucedo reported on Wednesday.
«The annulment of her sentence, the final ten-year sentence, has been ordered, and consequently, the same-day release has been ordered through the criminal enforcement judge who is in La Paz,» Saucedo told local media from Sucre, Bolivia's constitutional capital.
He explained that during the sentence review, «violations of the current legal order were found, and those violations affected the due process, as well as the rights she has».
«All of that has been corrected, and that is why the annulment of the sentence was determined,» Saucedo added.
The determination comes after the former leader's defense filed an extraordinary sentence review appeal to have it annulled, arguing that she should have been tried in a responsibility trial, not in the ordinary route as she was prosecuted and sentenced.
Áñez was serving a ten-year prison sentence in the 'coup d'état II' case, sentenced by Bolivian justice in June 2022, accused of illegally positioning herself in the constitutional line of succession when she was second vice president of the Senate and after the resignation of Evo Morales (2006-2019) from the presidency and his entire cabinet.
These processes were transferred to a responsibility trial.
A responsibility trial must be known by the Bolivian Legislative, which must first approve it and then transfer it to the TSJ for it to judge the case and issue a sentence.
Bolivian legislation reserves the responsibility trial for high-ranking state executives such as presidents, vice presidents, and magistrates of the high courts.
