Wife of jailed Bolivian opposition leader claims prison ‘intimacy’ filmed

The wife of a jailed Bolivian opposition leader accused the government Monday of having used a hidden camera to film “intimacy” between her and her husband on a prison visit.

Fatima Jordan, wife of Luis Fernando Camacho, called a press conference in the city of Santa Cruz to “denounce a serious abuse” committed against her by the government of leftist President Luis Arce.

The 30-year-old, who married Camacho in May last year, claimed that with “hidden cameras, the government recorded my intimacy as a woman and our intimacy as a couple.”

Camacho, the conservative governor of the country’s economic powerhouse region of Santa Cruz, was arrested in late December on terrorism charges, including for an alleged role in the resignation of leftist president Evo Morales in 2019.

Camacho’s detention sparked countrywide protests.

The 43-year-old leads Bolivia’s second-largest opposition bloc in congress and came third in presidential elections in October 2020 that were won by Arce, a Morales protege.

Lawyers for Camacho claimed last week that he had found a small camera hidden in a prison wall.

The prison department promised a thorough investigation.

Camacho was ordered held in preventive detention for four months, accused of fomenting a coup d’etat against Morales, who stepped down after losing the support of the military amid strikes and protests in 2019 in response to his disputed election to a fourth term.