Nadia Beller leaves Bolivia after receiving Mexican diplomatic asylum, Digi Mart USA News: Bolivian lawyer Nadia Beller, former partner of Argentine political consultant Fernando Cerimedo, left Bolivia on Wednesday bound for Mexico, nearly three months after surviving an armed attack that authorities are investigating the electoral strategist for allegedly planning, according to the Bolivian Foreign Ministry.
The government of centre-right President Rodrigo Paz disclosed this week that it had received a note from Mexico regarding the granting of diplomatic asylum to Beller, who took refuge in the Mexican diplomatic mission in La Paz after denouncing what she described as harassment by authorities. Beller, 33, survived three gunshot wounds on August 17 in the city of Santa Cruz in eastern Bolivia.
She was four weeks pregnant at the time, and from the hospital she accused Cerimedo, a former adviser to Paz, of planning the attack to prevent her from revealing acts of corruption within the government.
The Bolivian Foreign Ministry said in a statement on Wednesday that it had decided to grant the safe-conduct requested by Mexico and that it accompanied Beller’s departure from the country in the early hours of the morning. Cerimedo is being held in a Bolivian prison awaiting trial on charges of attempted femicide, in addition to other proceedings for illicit enrichment and money laundering.
In late October, Beller told AFP that investigations against Cerimedo had stalled after the arrest and subsequent replacement of former Attorney General Roger Mariaca, who was detained on accusations of protecting drug trafficking. The Paz government had said in advance that it would not object to Beller’s departure, since she has no open cases in Bolivia.
Cerimedo has been mentioned in journalistic investigations as directing a regional electoral disinformation operation. In addition to Paz’s campaign, the strategist has collaborated with right-wing figures Javier Milei in Argentina, Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil and Nasry Asfura in Honduras.
