Congressman accompanies jailed American to court in Bolivia

Rep. Chris Smith (R-N.J.) visited a jailed American in Bolivia this week and accompanied him to a court hearing Smith said was “beset by irregularities.”

Smith, who chairs the House Foreign Affairs panel on Human Rights, held a hearing last week on New York businessman Jacob Ostreicher's arrest last year on money laundering charges. Ostreicher denies the charges and says he's the victim of a con artist.

While in Bolivia, Smith said he witnessed the government officials who are prosecuting Ostreicher challenge the judge’s authority and threaten to take action against him if the hearing continued. Under pressure to recuse himself, Smith said, the judge turned the case over to a higher court, likely delaying the case.

“International scrutiny will increase, not decrease,” Smith said in a statement. “What was a relatively obscure case is now a growing international embarrassment for the Morales government that runs Bolivia.”

Smith has called for Ostreicher's immediate release. And four New York Democrats — Sens. Charles Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand and Reps. Jerrold Nadler and Nydia Velázquez — have written an open letter to the Bolivian government calling for Ostreicher to be granted bail.

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