Il Nuovo Postiglione - Bolivian ex-president Anez leaves prison after sentence annuled

Anez, 58, was greeted by relatives and supporters as she emerged from a women's penitentiary in La Paz waving a Bolivian flag.

"I will never regret having served my country," she said through a loudspeaker at the prison gates.

Anez, a former senator, served as interim leader in 2019 after then-President Evo Morales fled the country following mass protests over alleged election fraud.

She famously brandished a large bible on taking office, declaring "Thank God, the bible has returned to the Bolivian government."

This was seen as a slight against Bolivia's Indigenous people, who include Morales, the first from this community to serve as Bolivia's president.

In 2019 he ran for a highly contentious fourth term but after weeks of deadly unrest over his disputed victory claim, the military called for him to step down.

Morales' party accused the opposition of staging a coup -- a claim dismissed as fictional by many because the army never took power.

Anez was arrested in 2021 after Morales' socialist party returned to power in 2020, and she was convicted of illegally assuming the presidency.

"There was never a coup d'etat. What happened was electoral fraud that led all Bolivians to demand our right to have our votes respected," Anez said on Thursday.

The Supreme Court said it overturned her sentence on grounds that Anez should have been tried by a special court in charge of alleged crimes by lawmakers in the course of their duties, by the criminal justice system.

Her release comes two days before Bolivia's new centre-right president-elect Rodrigo Paz is sworn in, ending two decades of socialism ushered in by Morales.

H.Zampino--INP