Bolivia's former interim president Jeanine Anez freed from prison after Supreme Court ruling

    La Paz, Nov 7 (AP) Bolivia's former interim president Jeanine Anez left prison on Thursday following a Supreme Court of Justice decision that annulled her 10-year sentence.
    “It's like coming back to life,” Anez said as she left the Miraflores women's prison in downtown La Paz, smiling and waving a Bolivian flag as supporters shouted, "Yes, we could."
    “I gave my country everything I had to give. It has been very painful... They treated me like a real criminal,” she added, her voice breaking.
    Anez had been imprisoned for more than four years. She was arrested in March 2021, and convicted in June 2022, for her role in assuming the presidency in a controversial National Assembly session following the deadly 2019 protests that led to the resignation of then-president Evo Morales (2006-2019).
    The protests, which resulted in 37 deaths, followed a crisis that erupted after presidential elections in which Morales won another term, despite the Organization of American States denouncing the results as fraudulent.
    On Wednesday, Bolivia's Supreme Court of Justice annulled Anez's conviction and ordered a political trial, as demanded by her defence.
    "Her actions were protected by a state of constitutional necessity aimed at preserving the institutional continuity of the Bolivian state,” the ruling said, closing the debate over whether there was a coup against Morales, as his supporters claim.
    The top court's decision on Anez came three days ahead of the inauguration of President-elect Rodrigo Paz, who secured a historic victory on October 19 that ended nearly 20 years of political dominance by Morales' leftist Movement Toward Socialism (MAS) party.
    Paz has invited Anez to the inauguration and her daughter, Carolina Rivera, said that she might attend it.
    “The monster had to go for it to be acknowledged that there was not a coup in this country, but rather an electoral fraud... I will never regret having served my country when my country needed it,” Anez said.
    Anez has been accused of multiple counts, but in no pending cases in ordinary courts. In August, courts annulled two other convictions against her over the deaths of 20 protesters during the 2019 political crisis.
    After the latest presidential elections, the court ordered an immediate review of the length of the pretrial detention imposed on Anez and two other opposition leaders, who were released from prison and placed under house arrest. (AP) ARI

(This story has not been edited by THE WEEK and is auto-generated from PTI)