La Paz, Bolivia (AP) – The former Bolivian minister Arturo Murillo was admitted on Saturday afternoon to a penalty in La Paz after a court ordered him to remain in preventive detention. The decision was made two days after the former official was Deported from the United Stateswhere he served a sentence of two and a half years after bars for money laundering charges and bribes, the same cases for which he was tried in Bolivia.
Murillo, who served as Government Minister between 2019 and 2020, will comply with “preventive detention for an indefinite time” in the La Paz prison, said Attorney General Ricardo Condori at the end of the hearing. On Sunday a new hearing is scheduled for a second trial, said Condori.
In 2024, the former minister was sentenced in the absence of eight years in prison for the purchase of tear gas at an inflated price. He also faces a second sentence of five years in prison for the irregular import of riot material in 2019, although both failures are being appealed, said his lawyer Jaime Tapia.
Murillo was Minister of Government during the brief mandate of the internal president Jeanine Áñez (2019-2020), who was also imprisoned after he assumed the position in the midst of violent protests that left 37 dead and forced the resignation of the then president Evo Morales after some elections that were denounced as fraudulent.
The Morales Party returned to power in 2020 after winning the elections with the current president, Luis Arce, who promoted the processes against the promoters of the protests, as well as against Áñez and his collaborators.
Murillo has 15 open processes in Bolivia, two of them with appeal sentence, according to Attorney General Roger Mariaca.
The judgments have had a “political content,” said Tapia, who said that his client “has the right to defend himself in freedom.” Condori requested preventive detention because Murillo represents a possible “risk of escape.”
“Over time everything is going to be known,” Murillo reached journalists while entering a police vehicle for transfer to the prison.
After leaving power, Murillo fled in 2020 to the United States, where he was arrested and sentenced to six years in jail for criminal association to collect bribes and money laundering. He reduced his condemnation for good behavior and was deported to Bolivia on Thursday.
The 10-year sentence in prison faced is also under review, while other processed in relation to the 2019 political crisis left jail in recent days, after the national elections of August 17 that determined the fall of the ruler movement to socialism (more) that remained in power for almost 20 years with Morales (2006-2019) and Arce (2020-2026).
This article was published by Associated Press on 2025-09-06 17:25:00
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