Amabol demands results from Prosecutor Urioste over judges killed in Cochabamba and Santa Cruz
The Bolivian Judges' Association demands swift investigation into two judges shot dead in November 2025 and April 2026.
Bolivian magistrates press General Prosecutor over unpunished crimes against judges
The Bolivian Judges' Association (Amabol) demanded concrete progress from the new General Prosecutor of the State, José Armando Urioste, in the investigation of two murders of judicial operators committed between November 2025 and May 2026, according to El Deber.
The first occurred on the night of Friday, 7 November 2025 in central Cochabamba. Two men on a motorcycle intercepted the vehicle of Edilberto Marcial Cruz, judge of the Sentencing Court of Villa Tunari, when he stopped his vehicle upon arriving at an intersection near the Virrey Toledo plaza. The assailants opened fire, and before fleeing returned to verify, through the opposite window, that the victim had died. The moment was recorded in security camera footage broadcast on social media.
The second case involves Víctor Hugo Claure Hinojoza, senior magistrate of the Agroenvironmental Court. Near midnight on Thursday, 30 April 2026, Claure Hinojoza was driving his vehicle with a woman along Busch Avenue, in the Costanera neighbourhood near the fourth ring of Santa Cruz, when men on a motorcycle intercepted him and shot him. The magistrate died at the scene; the attackers escaped. Police authorities characterised the incident as a hired killer attack.
From Amabol, its representatives formally requested that Prosecutor Urioste accelerate investigations into both cases. "We had previously requested this from the former prosecutor (Mariaca), we have two very unfortunate cases. One involving the murder of a high-ranking State authority who was the former magistrate of the Agroenvironmental Court, and also a senior figure, and also a technical judge from Cochabamba, which would be linked to a hired killing case and possible organised crime," they stated in contact with the national authority.
The association had previously raised a similar request with the former prosecutor without obtaining visible results. With the change in command at the General Prosecutor's Office, Amabol renews pressure for investigations to advance and those responsible for both crimes to be identified.
Source: El Deber