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Bolivia’s former interim president Jeanine Áñez freed from prison after Supreme Court ruling
Original Publication Date: November 6, 2025 9:52AM
Publication Updated: November 6, 2025 12:08PM
LA PAZ, Bolivia (AP) — Bolivia’s former interim president Jeanine Áñez left prison Thursday following a Supreme Court of Justice decision that annulled her 10-year sentence.
“It’s like coming back to life,” Áñez said as she left the Miraflores women’s prison in downtown La Paz. She smiled and waved a Bolivian flag as supporters celebrated and shouted, “Yes, we could.”
“I gave my country everything I had to give. It has been very painful… they treated me like a real criminal,” she added, her voice breaking.
Áñez had been imprisoned for more than four years. She was arrested in March 2021, and in convicted in June 2022, for her role in assuming the presidency in a controversial National Assembly session following the deadly 2019 protests that led to the resignation of then-president Evo Morales (2006-2019).
The protests, which resulted in 37 deaths, followed a crisis that erupted after presidential elections in which Morales won another term, despite the Organization of American States denouncing the results as fraudulent.
On Wednesday, Bolivia’s Supreme Court of Justice annulled Áñez’s conviction and ordered a political trial, as demanded by her defense.
“Her actions were protected by a state of constitutional necessity aimed at preserving the institutional continuity of the Bolivian state,” the ruling said, closing the debate over whether there was a coup against Morales, as his supporters claim.
The top court’s decision on Áñez came three days ahead of the inauguration of President-elect Rodrigo Paz, who secured a historic victory on Oct. 19 that ended nearly 20 years of political dominance by Morales’ leftist Movement Toward Socialism (MAS) party.
Paz invited Áñez to the inauguration and her daughter, Carolina Rivera, said that she might attend it.
“The monster had to go for it to be acknowledged that there was not a coup in this country, but rather an electoral fraud… I will never regret having served my country when my country needed it,” Áñez said.
Áñez has been accused of multiple counts, but is no pending cases in ordinary courts. In August, courts annulled two other convictions against her over the deaths of 20 protesters during the 2019 political crisis.
The former interim president was arrested in March, 2021.
After the latest presidential elections, the court ordered an immediate review of the length of the pretrial detention imposed on Áñez and two other opposition leaders, who were released from prison and placed under house arrest.
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