Leny Chuquimia / La Paz
The relatives and the lawyer of the journalist Luis A. Muñoz C., apprehended for a meme, warn influence peddling, illegal appointments and abuse of power behind the criminal proceedings initiated against the communicator. They ask for guarantees for the threats that Muñoz received in the cells.
“This accusation was made in record time, it is a sign of alarming influence peddling. In the appeal hearing for precautionary measures, I already requested, and it must be transcribed in the resolution, that the records for the illegal appointment of the director of the Mining Administrative Jurisdictional Authority (AJAM), Brenda Lafuente, be sent to the Public Ministry. Muñoz’s defense attorney, Marcelo Valdez, told Página Siete.
This is not the first complaint against Lafuente. Already in 2021, more than a dozen legislators and social organizations questioned his appointment.
Page Seven tried to obtain the version of the authority but received no response. So far, neither the AJAM nor the Ministry of Mining have made an official statement on the matter.
Meme, influences and power
A few months ago, communicator Luis Muñoz, a former journalist for the state channel Bolivia TV and current reporter for Grupo EXA, began working as the person in charge of social networks for AJAM.
It was in that function of public servant that, by order of Lafuente, he made a meme -with the false label- to clean the image of the authority.
However, according to the version of Muñoz’s relatives and lawyer, the result of the assignment was not to Lafuente’s liking.
Upon seeing the product, the authority proceeded to seize Muñoz’s mobile phone and ordered the institution’s police officer to arrest the official, in direct action, and threatened him with “moving all his influences” to send him to the San Pedro, from the city of La Paz.
In less than 24 hours, the communicator was charged with political violence against women and was placed in preventive detention for four months in that prison.
“Last year he had the son of one of our deputies, who was a third-level technician, imprisoned. Recently he imprisoned his communicator for a meme (…). What power does (Lafuente) have? Who has put him in office? Who is sponsoring him?” questioned Senator Andrea Barrientos, from CC.
For the lawyer Valdez, in this case there is an “obvious influence peddling” that must be investigated. He affirmed that this was made clear in the hearing to appeal the preventive detention to which Lafuente -as a victim- did not attend and in which the Prosecutor’s Office backed down from its position of increasing the detention time to six months.
“In this case, amusingly, the apprehension is quickly given. There is a great inequality of justice (…). Influence peddling was fully demonstrated, since the lawyer holds a position that requires six years of experience in the mining area, a requirement that she does not meet. Already at that point there is an influence peddling that emboldens the authority and for which it is considered untouchable and that it can do what it wants”, said the jurist.
In 2021 a similar case occurred. On that occasion, the official was a lawyer who held a technical position without the power to decide, approve or sign resolutions. Said employee is the son of Deputy Guillermo Benavides, from CC.
On March 17, 2021, the legislator observed the appointment of Lafuente and a written report to the Minister of Mining, Ramiro Villavicencio. Weeks later, in what Benavides calls revenge, his son was arrested on the street, without an arrest warrant or formal charges. Both actions were formalized hours after the affected person was found in cells. In less than 48 hours he received preventive detention in the San Pedro prison.
It should be clarified that the worker is being investigated as part of a corruption case, due to the unfiling, in 2020, of the San Miguel de Huachi mining contract in a forest area. For that case there are three investigated, but only Benavides’ son was arrested.
“There is abuse. In communication and other areas, the staff changes a lot. If they investigate, they will find out what is happening,” said a source at AJAM.
Complaints about the designation
“In an appeal hearing for precautionary measures, we request that the records of Lafunete’s appointment be sent to the Public Ministry. They by trade must refer the issue and open a criminal proceeding for illegal appointment,” Valdez said.
He pointed out that to assume the position the authority ignored the requirement of experience in mining matters.
According to information published on the AJAM website, Lafuente, 29, graduated from the Law School at the Bolivian Catholic University of Cochabamba. He obtained a doctorate in Criminal Law and Criminal Policy from the Universidad Mayor de San Andrés and has a master’s degree in Criminal Sciences. Additionally, he completed a diploma in Higher Education at the Universidad Privada del Valle.
In addition, she was legal advisor to the Ombudsman’s Office in Cochabamba and the Ministry of Justice. She was a sponsoring attorney for the Plurinational Victim Assistance Service. None of the references are related to mining.
But this is not the first time his inexperience has been observed. In addition to Benavides’ Request for a Written Report, in 2021, more than a dozen opposition deputies filed a criminal complaint with the Public Ministry, due to Lafuente’s appointment, against the Minister of Mining. They noted not only the authority’s lack of mining experience, but also the age of his law degree.
“More than 10 deputies sent a criminal complaint for this appointment, but it was dismissed. The Prosecutor’s Office, in this specific case, as always when it protects people from the Executive, made a decision based on an argument that does not even correspond to the defense of the fact,” said Deputy Marcelo Pedrazas, from CC.
They accompanied the complaint with the Public Registry of Lawyers of Lafuente, which dates from September 2, 2016. This implies that at the time of his appointment, in January 2021, he had been practicing law for four years and four months, and not six. years as required by law.
However, the Prosecutor’s Office issued a dismissal order. According to the document, the complainants did not consider that Law 387, which puts the Public Registry of Lawyers into effect, dates from July 9, 2013.
“To affirm that professional lawyers, whose date of issuance of their titles in National Provision are prior to the date of the promulgation of Law 387, have seniority in the exercise of the profession only after the validity of said norm, would be an attack on a a widely protected human right,” says the document accessed by this media outlet.
Although the resolution indicated that the only objective evidence is the national provision title, it was not shown that the document is prior to 2013.
“There was a partialization of the Prosecutor’s Office and an argument as if they were the minister’s lawyers,” added Pedrazas.
In several interviews that Lafuente gave during her participation in the Miss Cochabamba pageant, between April and May 2013, the candidate for beauty queen declared that she was in her third year of Law. Page Seven confirmed this information. She implies that she should have finished the degree after the issuance of Law 387.
In other words, the argument of the Prosecutor’s Office, from a degree prior to 2013, is not possible.
house arrest
Photo: APG
Muñoz’s case became known by chance, when his preventive detention in San Pedro had already been ordered.
“He was not transferred because in the same cells of the Felcv, he was threatened twice. They told him that everything was ready, that “as soon as he entered San Pedro they were going to cool him down.” That is why we want guarantees for him and the whole family, “said the communicator’s sister, Wilma Muñoz.
Despite the fact that house arrest was determined in the appeal hearing last Tuesday, Muñoz did not leave the cells of the Felcv until Friday.
“I am not free, I am still under house arrest. I am innocent, there must be an investigation so that the whole truth comes to light,” Muñoz said after leaving the prison.
Unitas Observatory: 50 violations of the press and 13 of freedom of expression
According to the database, by months, the cases of violation of press freedom were: 19 in January, eight in February and 23 in March. The latter, the period with the greatest number of events.
Likewise, during this first quarter there were 41 journalists and press workers attacked.
Regarding the violation of freedom of expression, the cases occurred as follows: three in January, two in February and eight during the past month.
The National Association of Journalists of Bolivia (ANPB) denounced that the judicial decision to send the journalist Luis Muñoz to the San Pedro prison, for making a meme, is “a new attack against freedom of expression.”
In a statement, the ANPB said that the judicial authority “ignores the full validity of the Printing Law and the Political Constitution of the State itself, which establishes freedom of expression, opinion and information for all Bolivians and specifically, to the workers of the press”.
In 2021, the Unitas observatory recorded 73 violations of press freedom, and attacks on journalists are the most recurrent by authorities at different levels of government, social organizations, individuals, and others.
It also counted as other violations the impediment to access to information (nine cases), censorship (seven cases), stigmatization of journalists (seven cases), threats to journalists (seven cases), criminalization of journalists (six cases), attack on a means of communication (one case), discriminatory assignment of official publicity (one case) and violation of the confidentiality of information sources (one case).
