Fernando Cerimedo, a former advisor to Argentine President Javier Milei, was arrested Tuesday morning at Viru Viru Airport in Bolivia as part of an investigation into the armed attack on his former partner, activist Nadia Beller, who remains hospitalized with gunshot wounds.
Cerimedo, who, according to local outlets, was in Bolivia working as an advisor to center-right President Rodrigo Paz, was detained as he was about to board a flight to Buenos Aires.
Bolivian newspaper El Deber reported that investigators are looking into possible links between Cerimedo and the attack.
Beller, a 33-year-old Bolivian lawyer, human rights activist and political analyst, was shot at a hotel in Santa Cruz de la Sierra, Bolivia, on Monday night. She was hit by three bullets and remains hospitalized at a private clinic.
According to police sources, she is in stable condition and out of danger.
The attack
As can be seen in the video footage of the attack that became public, Beller, a former supporter who became a fierce critic of ex-President Evo Morales, was standing at the entrance to the building, located near the Isuto Canal, when two men approached her, and one of them shot her.
Bolivia’s Special Force for Combating Crime is working to identify and locate the perpetrators of the attack. The suspects arrived at the hotel dressed as delivery workers, attacked Beller and later fled the scene, abandoning the motorcycle they had arrived on.
Cerimedo, who also worked on former Brazilian right-wing leader Jair Bolsonaro’s presidential campaign, has been under investigation in Brazil for charges of belonging to a criminal organization with operational cells and digital militias, although those charges were later dismissed.
In Argentina, he was in charge of part of Milei’s presidential campaign’s digital strategy and is one of the owners of the right-wing website La Derecha Diario.
In July, Cerimedo took to social media to deny allegations of gender-based violence after claims emerged following an argument with Beller, with whom he was in a relationship.
