Jorge Quispe / La Paz
Brenda Lafuente Fernández was born 29 years ago in Cochabamba and is a lawyer by profession. Last year she was denounced for being “pitita” and then she was accused of not meeting the requirements for the position of national director of AJAM. In 2021, she also prosecuted a former official who went to jail and is now under fire for prosecuting journalist Luis Muñoz for “publishing memes.” The controversial authority was in 2013 one of the candidates for Miss Cochabamba.
The current director of the Mining Administrative Jurisdictional Authority (AJAM), inaugurated in January 2021, has been criticized in recent days by the Minister of Justice, Iván Lima, and the organizations Human Rights Watch (HRW), the Observatory of Women Defenders and Defenders of the National Union of Institutions for Social Action Work (Unitas) and the Ombudsman’s Office after prosecuting journalist Muñoz for alleged political violence against women, a crime for which he was sent to jail on April 1 .
“Supposedly (the director) would have asked him to make a meme for another authority, but to put the false label,” said lawyer Marcelo Valdez.
And although the communicator benefited yesterday from house arrest, according to the lawyer Marcelo Valdez, the process is still open.
page seven tried yesterday to obtain a version of Lafuente, but from the AJAM they did not respond.
Ascent
At 19, he was in his third year of law school at the Bolivian Catholic University in Cochabamba, where he later graduated. Before her, when she was a candidate for Miss Cochabamba, in one of her statements she described herself as a “very accelerated” person.
The AJAM website says that he did postgraduate studies and obtained a doctorate in Criminal Law and Criminal Policy from the Universidad Mayor de San Andrés, has a master’s degree in Criminal Sciences and has a diploma in Higher Education from the Universidad Privada del Valle.
On January 13, 2021, Lafuente was appointed as the national director of the AJAM. According to the Comptroller General of the State, Lafuente had at that time 595,641 bolivianos as assets.
The lawyer previously worked at the Ombudsman’s Office in Cochabamba, was a legal advisor to the Ministry of Justice and a sponsoring attorney for the Plurinational Victim Assistance Service. She is not mentioned in the page related to mining.
Observed for a requirement
And it is precisely from this last detail, that the deputy Guillermo Benavides, of the Citizen Community (CC), observed his appointment on March 17 of last year, because he does not have six years of experience in mining matters, for which he carried out a Request for a Written Report (PIE) to the Minister of Mining, Ramiro Villavicencio, something that was not answered.
Law 535 mentions in Art. 43 that to exercise this position, one of the requirements is: “Have recognized suitability and professional experience in mining matters for at least six (6) years for the National Directorate and four for departmental directorates. and regional”. Benavides reaffirms that Lafuente does not comply with the norm.
In “revenge”, according to what Benavides said at the time, Lafuente denounced the deputy’s son, Diego Benavides, for “approving resolutions contrary to the law.” Diego had worked in that office since 2017 as a legal analyst. “A position that requires him to issue legal opinions, but without the authority to sign resolutions,” clarifies his father.
Despite this, Diego was preventively detained for six months and the case is still open, the assemblyman confirmed yesterday.
Militancy with the MAS
Also last year, Lafuente was accused by some sectors of the Movement Toward Socialism (MAS) of being a “pitita.” They even published photos of the electoral register in which she supposedly does not appear as a blue militant.
In 2021, Lafuente was also denounced by the Guaracyasi Mining Company for paralyzing and canceling its process to allegedly benefit a Chinese citizen, Huoy Kung Tang. It is not officially known what happened to the case.
And this year, on Friday, April 1, Lafuente denounced the journalist Muñoz for the crime of violence against women and then the Prosecutor’s Office ordered preventive detention in the San Pedro de La Paz prison for four months; however, that was reversed yesterday at a hearing.
“He will be released with home detention and job release, tomorrow we are going to get him out of jail,” confirmed his lawyer Valdez to Página Siete. The reporter, who previously worked for Bolivia TV, was currently an AJAM official and reported to Lafuente.
