Fernando Cerimedo, a former adviser to President Javier Milei and Bolivia’s current leader, refused to testify on Tuesday in a case in which he has been accused of attempted femicide over the shooting of his former partner Nadia Beller in the Bolivian city of Santa Cruz de la Sierra.
The political consultant remains in police custody in La Paz, Bolivia’s capital, where he had been working as an adviser to President Rodrigo Paz Pereira.
Cerimedo has been accused of masterminding the shooting attack on Beller, who was approached by several unidentified men outside a hotel in Santa Cruz de la Sierra on Monday night.
Bolivian Prosecutor General Roger Mariaca said the investigation would not be limited to the political adviser, as there may have been other people who masterminded the attack.
Authorities will seek to identify those who planned the shooting and establish their links to the gunmen, he said.
Cerimedo, a current adviser to Paz who has worked in recent years with President Milei and Brazil’s Bolsonaro family, was arrested at Viru Viru International Airport in Santa Cruz de la Sierra as he prepared to board a flight to Buenos Aires, hours after the attack.
The attempted murder took place at a hotel in the Canal Isuto area of Santa Cruz, where Beller had been summoned for an alleged work opportunity.
Two men dressed as delivery workers arrived on a stolen motorbike, one of whom opened fire while the others took her handbag and mobile phone. The three men then fled in another vehicle.
Beller, a 33-year-old lawyer, was rushed to hospital after being shot four times. Speaking from her hospital bed to Bolivian outlet DTV, she blamed Cerimedo for the attack.
“Clearly, he [Cerimedo] wanted to get rid of me,” she said.
“He sent the hitmen, he knows who they are,” she added. “If I hadn’t pretended to be dead, they would have finished me off.”
Mariaca later confirmed to reporters that an investigation into attempted femicide had been opened.
On Tuesday, Paz expressed solidarity with Beller and said she “must be afforded full security and all necessary guarantees”, while calling for the investigation to be conducted with “absolute transparency and independence”.
“I have instructed the relevant authorities to conduct a thorough, transparent, and exhaustive investigation,” the Bolivian president wrote on X.
Presidential spokesman José Luis Gálvez said the authorities would not cover up crimes, but would also not “tolerate unfounded accusations”.
Cerimedo flew from La Paz, Bolivia’s political capital, to Santa Cruz on Tuesday morning before attempting to continue to Buenos Aires, local media reported.
Santa Cruz police chief David Gómez said investigators suspected the attack was related to Beller’s past relationship with Cerimedo.
Beller previously ran for a congressional seat with MAS, the left-wing party led by Evo Morales, Bolivia’s first Indigenous president. More recently, she has been linked to the political right.
From her hospital bed, Beller alleged that her relationship with Cerimedo had made her a “witness” to the inner workings of Paz’s government and political organisation, including what she described as cases of corruption.
She also said she was four weeks pregnant with Cerimedo’s child.
Beller’s allegations
On Tuesday, Beller published a series of photos on social media showing bundles of cash stored in a drawer and a decoration awarded to Cerimedo by Bolivian police.
She also published images of bruises on her body and screenshots of alleged messages between the pair discussing physical violence.
Alongside the photos, the lawyer wrote: “The police will cover it up,” and “Look at how they decorated him,” referring to the award.
In another Facebook post, she shared further images of bruising and screenshots of alleged messages.
“Now you’re saying you didn’t hit me. Choking me, throwing me around and hitting my cheekbone isn’t hitting me. Well, look at that,” Beller allegedly wrote in one exchange. “I’m glad to know that all your previous apologies were false, that you were never actually sorry. I realised that anyway from the way you acted.”
Cerimedo allegedly replied: “I apologised to you in a thousand different ways, but you only want to keep punishing me, taking revenge. And I understand you. But you don’t have any limits either, and it’s clear that the love has gone.”
In a subsequent interview with Argentine radio station Radio Rivadavia, Beller said Cerimedo had been her lover and alleged that he ordered her killing because she was planning to report him for assault.
Asked why she believed her former partner was behind the attack, she replied: “Because he knows I know a lot of things and because I told him I was going to report the assaults.”
Beller also alleged that Cerimedo and his wife, Natalia Basil, had leaked audio recordings that led to an investigation into alleged bribes at Argentina’s National Disability Agency (ANDIS). She further accused him of money-laundering in Bolivia.
The allegations have not been independently established.
“They did leak the recordings so that Milei’s corruption and the corruption of Milei’s sister [Karina Milei] would come down. I have that recorded and he knows I have it recorded,” said Beller.
Speaking to Radio Rivadavia by telephone from intensive care, she said she had been shot four times and confirmed that Cerimedo was the father of her unborn child.
The lawyer said she had confronted him about “many things, regarding her [his wife] and ANDIS”, and alleged that he assaulted her after she discovered another affair.
“I am certain it was him,” she said when asked who was behind the shooting.
“When I told him I was going to report him, he asked me for time. I now understand that he needed time to organise and kill me,” she said.
She added: “I don’t feel safe in my own country. I am absolutely certain that he is going to send people to finish what they failed to do. They have assigned a single female police officer to protect me. I have no security.”
– TIMES/NA/AFP
