Former Bolivian interior minister to be deported from US to face charges

LA PAZ, Bolivia (AP) — The Bolivian government announced that Arturo Murillo, a former interior minister, would be deported late Wednesday from Florida to Bolivia, where he is expected to face charges ranging from breach of duty for illegally importing weapons to crimes against humanity for overseeing a brutal crackdown on protests in 2019.

Murillo was freed from U.S. prison in June after serving four years in a separate money laundering case that accused him of taking $532,000 in bribes to help a Florida company win a lucrative contract to sell tear gas to his country’s right-wing interim government.

Murillo, 61, was one of the most outspoken and provocative voices in the conservative government of then-interim President Jeanine Áñez that took power in November 2019 after former President Evo Morales, Bolivia’s first Indigenous leader, stepped down amid violent protests disputing his reelection to a fourth straight term.

Within days of his release from federal prison, Murillo was rearrested and transferred to ICE custody in Miami, where he fought his deportation order, said a Bolivian diplomat in Washington who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to brief the media.

A judge rejected his final appeal and upheld his deportation on July 29.

Murillo’s expected deportation comes after general elections in Bolivia last month signaled an end to almost two decades of dominance by the ruling Movement Toward Socialism, or MAS, party.

Ahead of a presidential runoff in October between two opposition candidates, Murillo’s jailed right-wing allies have won a series of legal victories in long-stalled cases tied to the political crisis of 2019.

Bolivian judges in recent days have ordered opposition leader and governor Luis Fernando Camacho released to house arrest with liberal work-release privileges pending his trial on charges related to his involvement in the 2019 post-election violence.

Last week, another judge annulled charges against Áñez related to her role in the 2019 killings of protesters, rerouting the case through a special political process for former head of state.

From Bolivia’s capital of La Paz, the outgoing MAS government promised that Murillo would be held to account when his flight landed early Thursday.

“We are waiting for him to come and serve the sentences that have been handed down through court proceedings that respect due process,” Justice Minister Jessica Saravia told reporters.

But in light of the recent rulings from Bolivia’s politically influenced judiciary, officials signaled that the exact fate of the powerful ex-minister remains unclear.

“We do hope that the courts will enforce the sentences,” said Minister of Government Roberto Ríos.

Murillo was recently convicted in absentia in two of the six cases against him — sentenced to over five years in prison for allegedly importing tear gas from Ecuador without proper permission and eight years for buying overpriced tear gas and other non-lethal weapons from a Florida-based company.

Murillo deployed that equipment to suppress protests against Áñez’s government by Morales’ supporters. At least 37 people were killed in the unrest and ensuing crackdown.

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DeBre reported from Buenos Aires, Argentina