Prosecutor Ruddy Terrazas announced that in the preliminary phase, four inmates and two policemen are being investigated for the death of inmate Cristofer Quispe.
Photo: Luis Callisaya, Página Siete.
22 October 2021
A terrifying “torture bus” runs in the Chonchocoro prison
In the maximum-security prison of San Pedro de Chonchocoro, a bus became a cell for isolation and punishment. Recently, it was used to torture and harass the prisoner Cristofer Quispe, who died in that prison.
Long before 2019, the police bus was already within the perimeter of entry to the different sections of the prison. It still stands there, near a watchtower, with the windows locked with mesh and the doors locked with padlocks.
Photo: Luis Callisaya, Página Siete.
Two years ago, a prisoner was isolated for more than three months on that green bus. Supposedly, he had misbehaved and was very violent. The bus operated as a cell for the inmate and only through some windows of the motorized vehicle could the inmate see little of what was happening around him or make any request.
“Through the inmates themselves, it was known that they were once punished there. At one time, a problematic or dangerous prisoner lived on the bus. It had different purposes, sometimes it was used to isolate [inmates],” a former authority who worked on the issue of prisons during the Government of Evo Morales told Página Siete and asked to keep his identity confidential.
Depending on the instruction given by the prison authority, the bus was used, sometimes as an isolation space for dangerous inmates and other times for prisoners whose lives were at risk.
It was in that motorized vehicle, known as the “Bus” area, where Cristofer Quispe received brutal beatings from a Police lieutenant on October 14 and 15. On Saturday 16, the same Police officer reportedly beat the inmate again. It was supposedly in retaliation against Quispe, who had spat in the face of a colonel who works in that compound.
“After the fact, the Police officer would have deposited the prisoner in a punishment cell measuring two by one square meters, located next to the so-called sector E (inside the prison perimeter). There, Quispe was found dead on Sunday, October 17,” says the report issued by the Service for the Prevention of Torture (Sepret).
Cristofer was arrested for the crime of robbery. Due to a court order, he had to leave jail last Thursday, but the measure was not carried out because the inmate did not have 200 bolivianos to complete the procedures.
The prisoner had to wait until Sunday to receive a visit from his brother and he would lend him that money. In that period of time, he lost his life.
Preliminary inquiries indicate that Cristofer had even been chained months before his death. Another hypothesis shows that the inmate was beaten and raped by four other prisoners following the orders of the Police.
There are other similar spaces such as “The Bus” in the country’s prisons, which should only be used for isolation in some exceptional situations. In the Cantumarca prison (Potosí) there is a kind of basement, where the punished are taken; in San Pedro (La Paz) there is the so-called “Grulla” (crane); in El Abra (Cochabamba) they have isolated adobe rooms.
The former Director of the Penitentiary Regime, Ramiro Llanos, reported that the use of isolation environments depends on the authority of each prison facility, who decides on the type of administrative management of those spaces, but under no circumstances are they for acts of torture or humiliation.
He remarked that the Chonchocoro prison has individual cells, where inmates who have bad behavior are isolated, “it is not necessary to take them to other environments.”
Photo: Bolivisión snapshot
“Prisons must take care of people’s lives. That is their constitutional and legal responsibility and, furthermore, what the declaration of human rights indicates,” Llanos told Página Siete.
Regarding the death of Cristofer Quispe, the prosecutor Ruddy Terrazas reported yesterday that the inmates Alexander Dayvis G. R., Odelio Matheus B. A., Daniel F. O., and Rolando A. B. will be investigated for murder. He said that it will also be investigated whether the Police officers Wilson P. A. and Miguel Ángel Z. A. –the head of security and the Director of the Chonchocoro [prison]– have [some degree of] responsibility.
“It can be established that four inmates were allegedly involved in the prison who had beaten the victim. In the investigative stage, it will also be determined if the head of security has had any participation as well as the Director of the Chonchocoro [prison],” said the prosecutor.
The Departmental Director of the Penitentiary Regime, Franz Laura, reported that the death of Cristofer Quispe in the high-security prison is under investigation. The investigation must clarify the causes of death and whether the inmate was chained or tortured for three days.
“(The Prosecutor’s Office has been asked) for the statements of some administrative officials and Police officers.”
Franz Laura, Director
“The lack of control in prisons means that people sentenced or in preventive detention die inside the prisons.”
Ramiro Llanos, former Director
