Mexico Grants Political Asylum to Bolivian Lawyer Nadia Beller, Digi Mart USA News (La Paz, Bolivia): Mexico has granted political asylum to Nadia Beller, a 33-year-old Bolivian lawyer who survived an armed attack and who named her former partner, Argentine political consultant Fernando Cerimedo, as the alleged intellectual author. Bolivian authorities have said they will provide the safe-conduct necessary to allow her to leave the country.
The foreign ministries of Mexico and Bolivia formalized the procedure requested by Beller, while Bolivia’s Ministry of Government reported that the lawyer will be able to leave national territory. The announcement follows her statement that she did not feel safe and that an arrest warrant against her was allegedly being prepared.
According to the available material, Beller has been at the Mexican Embassy in La Paz since Wednesday, November 4.
In an interview with Radio Fides, Beller said that four diplomatic missions offered her asylum but she chose Mexico because it offered more favorable conditions, a faster response and legal security. “It is the country that offered me the most favorable conditions, granted asylum much faster, and also provided legal security,” she explained during the interview.
She also said she sought diplomatic protection because she did not feel safe remaining in Bolivia.
Beller received three gunshots during an attack carried out by two men on August 17. She survived and, from the hospital, accused Cerimedo of being the alleged intellectual author.
Responsibility, as alleged by the victim, must be determined by the competent judicial authorities. The lawyer also stated that members of the police may have participated in the events and questioned why they were not being investigated.
“I can assume they now have the same intentions they had when they tried to kill me,” she told the broadcaster.
Following the attack, four proceedings were opened against Cerimedo, an Argentine consultant who worked with Javier Milei and Jair Bolsonaro and who, according to the report, was an adviser to Bolivian President Rodrigo Paz. The accused has been in pretrial detention since August 21 in two of the cases: attempted femicide and illicit enrichment with harm to the State.
Beller also accused her former partner of having influence at high levels of Bolivia’s political power and of allegedly receiving commissions for facilitating contracts between foreign companies and the Executive. These claims are part of her allegations and are not presented as judicially established facts.
The case is also linked to the leak of at least ten recordings attributed to Cerimedo. In those audio files, the consultant is allegedly heard speaking with ministers, legislators and relatives of the president about appointments to posts, public policies and police operations.
President Paz requested that the justice system investigate both the content of the recordings and their allegedly illegal dissemination.
Beller later claimed that authorities sought to link her to the leak of those materials and that police were preparing an arrest warrant against her. In her latest Facebook post, the lawyer denounced what she described as a subjugation of judicial and security institutions to pursue those who report corruption.
Her statements have not been independently confirmed in the available information.
Bolivia will allow her departure. Initially, Bolivia’s Foreign Ministry said Mexico’s safe-conduct request was under evaluation.
Subsequently, Minister of Government Marco Antonio Oviedo confirmed that Beller may leave the country. Oviedo clarified that the authorization does not mean Bolivian authorities are abandoning the investigations related to the lawyer.
He indicated that Beller is part of inquiries in which police continue gathering evidence, although the report did not specify the possible crimes under investigation or when her transfer to Mexico will take place.
