Veronica Zapana S. / La Paz
The Santa Cruz Prosecutor’s Office is investigating the alleged release of another three of the eight sentenced for raping more than 150 women, adolescents and girls in the Mennonite community of Monitoba, which is located in the department of Santa Cruz. It is known that -in addition- another of the sexual aggressors died.
“We have learned that there are three more (of the rapists who were sentenced in 2011) who have also been released (from jail) and are free,” the prosecutor in the case, Mirtha Mejía, told Página Siete.
The prosecutor indicated that now “the Public Ministry is investigating that fact” and explained that she prefers not to give more details so as not to hinder the investigation.
This case was known between 2008 and 2009. At night, eight Mennonites entered the houses of the community where they lived and raped women, adolescents and girls. It is known that they used spray sleeping pills to put the relatives of the victims to sleep.
After a complaint, the eight were captured and in 2011 the Justice issued the sentence of 25 years in prison without the right to pardon for all the accused. But, almost a week ago, it became known that one of them – the youngest – Abraham Peters Dick was released in 2019 thanks to Judge Manuel Baptista, who gave him house arrest because he supposedly had to enter the Drug Addiction Rehabilitation Center. The aggressor was never hospitalized in that establishment.
Mejía explained that it was Peters himself who revealed that at least three of his accomplices -also- left the prison.
“According to what the condemned man himself, Abraham Peters, stated: ‘the others in my group who should also be with me in Palmasola have left’. That’s what he told us,” the prosecutor said.
In the statement, according to a report by Bolivia Tv, Peters indicated: “I want to add that Henrry Berging, Cornelio Tiseng, Jacob Wall and Pedro Wibe – the latter had a shorter sentence – are free because they paid their criminal execution judges.”
Peters recounted that the money used to pay the judges “came from Mennonite International donation colonies,” according to the report.
The prosecutor said Peters’ statement still needs to be verified because “they are doing a preliminary investigation.” “We are still collecting data to reinforce the accusation, that is why she took her statement in which she indicates that there are other (Mennonites) who have benefited.”
Due to this, Mejía indicated that of the eight sentenced at the time for the Manitoba violations, “at least four – the three investigated and Peters – were released from prison.”
According to the prosecutor, another of that group died. Although the circumstances of his death are not well known.
A source who investigated this case told this medium that in addition to the eight, there was another, a ninth, who was also arrested. “He was the one who raped his daughters in Palmasola.”
According to the data, probably of the first eight sentenced, only three are in prison.
Mejía said that the Peters case came to light after a review by the Public Ministry commission that investigates the courts that favored those sentenced. “When the social worker of that court is asked what happened with that case, she affirms that she does not know (about the release of Peters),” the prosecutor said.
Background
- Concern Upon learning of the case of the irregular release of Abraham Peters Dick, sentenced for multiple rape, the social worker went to the Rehabilitation Center to verify the convict’s stay in this establishment, but on the spot they told her that Peters was not registered as an inmate.
- Protocols The prosecutor in the case, Mirtha Mejía, said that when a judge granted home detention to an inmate sentenced because he is an older adult or because he has a terminal illness, the social worker must follow up on the detainee, but in the case of Peters it did not happen. that. “They didn’t tell him anything about this case,” she explained.
