American 'vampire' jailed for Bolivia blasts

Claire Truscott and agencies
Thursday January 24, 2008
Guardian Unlimited

The Bolivian president, Evo Morales, claimed the bombings were part of a US plot. Photograph: EPA

A Californian eccentric who named himself after a literary vampire has been jailed for bombing two hotels in Bolivia.

Triston Jay Amero, 26, goes by the name Lestat Claudius de Orleans y Montevideo, a variation on an Anne Rice vampire character.

Amero was sentenced on Tuesday to 30 years in prison without parole for bombing two La Paz hotels in 2006, which left two people dead and strained delicate Bolivia-US relations.

The court based its verdict on testimony from Amero's estranged common law Uruguayan wife, 47-year-old Alda Ribeiro Costa. She was also sentenced to 30 years for her role in the crime.

Amero, who has called for the murder of those who support the Bolivian president, Evo Morales, maintains his innocence. He says he was eating pizza across the capital with his wife when the bombs went off.

Amero is not shy about his talent for blowing things up, a skill he says he learned letting off fireworks with his grandmother.

"There's no school where you can go to learn how to be an explosives expert," Amero said. "You either have a talent for it or you don't."

The crime has fuelled Morales's suspicions of the US and accused Amero of being part of a larger US plot to destabilise his leftist government.

"The US government fights terrorism, and they send us terrorists," Morales said shortly after Amero's arrest.

The president later retreated from making any specific accusations, but continues to cite the hotel bombings in his frequent criticisms of US involvement in Bolivia. US officials deny any ties to Amero and claim such comments have hurt Bolivian ties.

A lawyer monitoring the case for Amero's family argues Morales tainted the trial. "You have the president of the country saying this guy is guilty. That's not fair," said Paul Wolf, a Washington-based lawyer.

According to US court documents, Amero has received psychiatric treatment since he was seven. He spent time at a juvenile detention centre and often made threats of suicide and violence against authorities.

Amero has been a fantasist since a young age. In earlier travels through south America he described himself as a Saudi Arabian lawyer, a pagan high priest, and a public notary.

Amero has now returned to Chonchocoro maximum-security jail, which has no clean running water. Amero may not find his fellow inmates too friendly, either: he was caught hiding petrol in his cell last year and admitted plotting to set fire to other prisoners.