21 July 2021
Cochabamba Youth Resistance (RJC) member hospitalized and his defense denounces that the detention is illegal
Mario Bascope, a member of the Cochabamba Youth Resistance (RJC), who was apprehended yesterday in the city of Santa Cruz, was transferred to Sucre this Wednesday morning to provide his informative statement regarding the damage suffered by the State Attorney General’s Office last year, although his defense denounced that his detention was illegal and that he was even beaten.
“Tonchy” as Bascope is known, was admitted to a hospital in Sucre due to a health problem, reported the Newspaper Correo del Sur in that city. At first, they took him to the Prosecutor’s Office to take his statement, but due to his ailment he was referred to a health center, anti-corruption prosecutors Daniel Fernandez and Javier Angel Gorena informed El Día [Newspaper].
His apprehension at the gates of the Santa Cruz prison occurred after being released on parole. The process against Bascope took place after an extension of the same case faced by the leader of the Cochabamba Youth Resistance (RJC), Yassir Molina, detained in the San Roque prison.
“About five minutes ago he called me telling me that he was already in the city of Sucre. They took him on a flight this morning; they made him sleep at the Special Force to Fight Crime (FELCC) in Santa Cruz. They had him there. They have beaten my husband, he has a hernia, right now he cannot walk, [and] he is all sore… He was held incommunicado,” said his wife Jesenia Rodriguez at a press conference in Santa Cruz. She added that when he had taken a few steps to regain his freedom and hug his son, he was abruptly detained and thrown into a vehicle.
The woman was unaware that her partner had any pending proceedings. “For the same reason, he was released. If he had had a pending process, he would not have been released,” added the woman, who blamed the Ministry of Government.
Prosecutor Fernandez informed the journalist, Ivan Ramos, of the ERBOL network, that the process that Bascope faces is because there are “sufficient indications of responsibility” that he participated in the acts of violence of 6 October 2020.
“It is an illegal deprivation of liberty, it is a kidnapping and obviously it is a political maneuver because there is no explanation for what happened last night. Now he has informed us that they wanted to make him sign some notifications and that he would surely declare and sign other declarations to implicate other people and continue with the political and media show of the persecutions that the Minister of Government is carrying out,” said his lawyer Martin Camacho. The jurist pointed out that neither he nor his colleague Jorge Valda, who are part of Bascope’s defense, received any notification where their client appears as a defendant.
The Vice Minister of Internal Affairs and Police affirmed that the apprehension of the Cochabamba Youth Resistance (RJC) member seeks to clarify the suspect’s participation in criminal acts in Sucre. “These acts have to do with the investigative process of a criminal organization that had to be dismantled last year but was not possible,” said Cox, who denounced that it was not possible because the then Minister of Government, Arturo Murillo, was “an accomplice” and “sponsor” of the Cochabamba Youth Resistance (RJC).
