According to Jorge Santistevan, the three-year prison sentence exempts the two uniformed men from going to prison for the Coup II case, however, they could still be preventively imprisoned for the Coup I case.
The former commanders of the Bolivian Air Force (FAB) and the Navy, Jorge Terceros and Palmiro Jarjury, were sentenced yesterday, in an abbreviated trial, to three years in prison, after they admitted their guilt for the crimes of resolutions contrary to the Constitution and the laws and breach of duties, in degree of complicity, in the case of the alleged Coup d'Etat II. According to an expert, the legal system establishes that the three-year sentence exempts the uniformed officers from imprisonment.
"The judge's determination: The abbreviated procedure is accepted, with the imposition of a three-year prison sentence for Palmiro Gonzalo Jarjury Rada in the Patacamaya Penitentiary Center and for Jorge Gonzalo Terceros Lara in the Palmasola Penitentiary Center", refers to the judicial act in which the determination of the First Anticorruption Sentencing Court of La Paz appears.
In the hearing, the Ministry of Government objected to the military officers receiving only three years in prison and requested that they be punished as perpetrators and not as accomplices. On the other hand, the Attorney General's Office did not oppose the measure. Both instances are plaintiffs in this case.
A few days ago, the family of the uniformed men made known, through a public letter, that they requested the alternative solution of the abbreviated procedure "in view of the unequal and unsuccessful struggle in the Bolivian justice system".
In this note, they alleged that they were forced to make this decision, since not even the uniformed officers themselves agreed. They assured that the Bolivian population knows the truth of the events of November 2019 and "history cannot be changed with these processes".
Days before, the officers alleged that their only "mistake" was to obey the orders of the then commander of the Armed Forces (FFAA) Williams Kaliman and to be present at a press conference on November 10, 2019, when Kaliman read a communiqué where he suggested the resignation of Evo Morales to the Presidency, during the social conflicts of that year.
For Terceros and Jarjury that decision to suggest the resignation was taken by the former head of the Armed Forces without any prior deliberation. For this reason, they denied at all times that they were the authors of the crime of resolutions contrary to the Constitution.
According to the document of the request for the abbreviated process, the two military officers were also accused of failing in their duties by allowing the withdrawal of the presidential medal from the Central Bank of Bolivia (BCB) to be given to the then Senator Jeanine Añez.
"(On) November 11, 2019, completely ignoring the norms and the Constitution itself, members of the Armed Forces proceeded to remove the presidential medal from the BCB, flagrantly failing to comply with their functions and attributions, which start from the fundamental mission of defending and preserving the independence, security and stability of the State, through the safeguard of the constitutionally elected government, ensuring the principles", states part of the list of facts of the document of the abbreviated process.
But this version of the Prosecutor's Office contradicts the statement of the former head of the Military Household, Milton Navia, who assured that, without orders from any superior and by protocol, he ordered that both the medal and the presidential sash be taken out of the safe deposit box of the BCB and taken to the Palace, in view of Morales' resignation and the imminent inauguration of a new president.
In spite of this, Terceros and Jarjury were convicted of complicity for these acts and received a three-year prison sentence. Both have been in preventive detention since July 2021 for the Coup I and II case.
The analyst and lawyer Jorge Santistevan explained that the legal order establishes that the three-year sentence exempts the officers from prison, in that sense, the two were spared from remaining in jail for the Coup II case.
"A three-year prison sentence exempts the military officers from continuing in prison for that crime, however, the repercussions of having assumed the responsibility, on the one hand, is lapidary for the Armed Forces, because two former military chiefs who are responsible for the resolutions contrary to the Constitution due to the fact that they did not fulfill the constitutional mission", mentioned the jurist.
With the two military officers already sentenced, the defendants who will go to oral trial for the Coup II case are: former President Jeanine Añez, former Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces Gustavo Arce and former Army Commander Pastor Mendieta. Also to be tried in absentia are former Armed Forces commanders Williams Kaliman and Sergio Orellana, former Armed Forces Inspector General Jorge Elmer Fernández and former Police Commander Yuri Calderón.
They see that the former military chiefs will continue to be detained for other cases.
Lawyer Jorge Santistevan considers that although former military chiefs Jorge Terceros and Palmiro Jarjury were spared from remaining in prison due to the minimum sentence they received in an abbreviated trial, they could still be imprisoned for the Coup I case and others, which are still in the investigation phase.
"The trial of the Golpe de Estado I process for the crimes of terrorism, sedition and conspiracy is still pending. But, in addition, they have another trial for the Betanzos case and the case of arms trafficking," he said.
He said that for these cases there is a latent possibility that both will continue to be detained.
The District Attorney of La Paz, William Alave, said yesterday that he will request an extension of the investigation period in the Golpe I case. "I do not yet have the time needed by the Prosecutor's Office, but yes, by continuing with the investigation we understand that we are going to continue with the request for the extension," he said.
Eusebio Vera, lawyer of Terceros and Jarjury, said that in the mentioned cases they have already presented the discharges to demonstrate that they did not participate. He added that the sentence, in abbreviated trial, against his defendants does not give immediate freedom, since deadlines and formalities must be fulfilled first.
"(The abbreviated process) will not have any effect on the other processes," he said.
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