Juan del Granado

Who is Juan del Granado?

Juan Fernando del Granado Cosío is a Bolivian human-rights lawyer and politician, mayor of La Paz and founder of the Without Fear Movement, a progressive political party. On November 11, 2013, he officially announced his candidacy for president of Bolivia for the 2014 election.

He is known as John the Fearless for achieving in 1993 the first-ever successful prosecution of a Latin American dictator in the ordinary courts for crimes committed in office. Bolivia’s Supreme Court sentenced Gen. Luis García Meza Tejada, the "cocaine dictator," to 30 years in jail without parole or remission for murder, theft, fraud and subverting the constitution. Despite its brevity, Garcia Meza's rule became notorious for its links to the cocaine trade and its use of paramilitary squads run by fascist mercenaries from Italy, Germany, France, Chile and Argentina. At least 50 people died, over 20 disappeared and thousands were arrested, imprisoned and tortured before it fell to a coup by dissident officers in August 1981. The best-known of his foreign aides was the Nazi war criminal Klaus Barbie, who was extradited to France in 1983, where he died in jail. As a prosecutor, del Granado was demonstrably fearless in the pursuit of justice, and shrugged off continual death threats.