The Justice, the Prosecutor’s Office and the security forces of Bolivia were criticized this Wednesday as a result of the case of the man who killed two teenagers, extorted and raped more than 70 women and who was free despite having a murder sentence dating back almost ten years.
The case became known this week, when the Ministry of Government (Interior) and the Bolivian Police reported on the discovery of the remains of two adolescents aged 15 and 17 reported missing in 2021 at the home of Richard Choque Flores, 32, who was arrested a few days ago for a complaint of extortion, pimping and rape.
inquiries made when The man was arrested, they allowed to establish that there are also at least 77 women who were sexually abused and extorted by the subject, who captured his victims through social networks and then disguised himself as a police officer to plant drugs, falsely accuse them, prostitute them or rape them. .
The criticism was greater when it was learned that the man was convicted in 2013 of the crime of murder, but was under house arrest without custody.
The interim Ombudsman, Nadia Cruz, questioned whether the judicial system allowed the release of a person prosecuted for murder, a crime punishable by 30 years in prison without the right to pardon.
“These criminal types do not merit redemption, which means that the sentence should have been served, at a minimum, regarding 20 years in prison,” Cruz said, according to a press release from the Ombudsman.
He also criticized the lack of effectiveness of the Police and the Prosecutor’s Office to investigate the case and questioned that the reports of disappearance of the two adolescents murdered by the man were not investigated at the time. and that they might only be discovered by the “confession” of the subject following his recent arrest.
“The actions of the Police and the Prosecutor’s Office are questionable,” Cruz lamented and urged that the other victims be given protection, in addition to announcing that the Ombudsman’s Office will follow the case closely.
political reactions
Former president and opposition leader Carlos Mesa maintained on Twitter that the man’s crimes, profiled as a “sexual psychopath”, show “how vulnerable women in Bolivia are to predators and murderers.”
“Law 348 ( once morest sexist violence) or propaganda is useless if there is no protection or prevention, and if we do not understand that violence once morest women is the worst social pandemic,” he added.
For its part, The senator of the opposition force, Cree Erik Morón, presented on this day a petition to reconsider in the upper house the treatment of a bill of “Chemical Castration and Life imprisonment, of tougher sentences for murder, parricide, rape and rape”, which he presented last September.
Morón lamented that it seemed that people got used to seeing headlines regarding murdered and raped women in the media and recalled that the second most reported crime in the country in 2021 was sexual abuse.
“They are not afraid of God, they are not afraid of Bolivian laws, therefore, sentences must be aggravated,” he added.
Bolivia closed 2021 with an official record of 108 femicides, according to data from the Prosecutor’s Office.
The Government of Luis Arce declared this 2022 as the “Year of the Cultural Revolution for Depatriarchalization”, to fight once morest sexist violence.
