Triston Jay Amero
Triston Jay Amero, also known as Lestat Claudius de Orleans y Montevideo, which he eventually changed to his legal name, was an American who was found guilty of the hotel bombings that killed two people and wounded seven others in La Paz, Bolivia, on March 22, 2006. The bombings damaged two low-rent hotels. A third bombing was stopped.
Biography
Amero, who also went by the name John Scheda, was born in Placerville, California, as the son of a California woman and Saudi Arabian man. He had reportedly been hospitalized for psychiatric treatment and had been in juvenile prison several times, beginning at age seven. He had wandered around Latin America for some years before settling in the Bolivian city of Potosí in 2004. In posts from Colombia to his blog, he repeatedly described himself as a loner, a "political refugee" and "the Superman of Loosers" whose strongest desire was to distance himself from the United States. He had previously been convicted of terrorism in Argentina and had sent a letter bomb to a judge in Uruguay in May 2005.Bombings
On 22 March 2006, Amero set off bombs at two independent hotels in Linares y Rioshino, two different locations in La Paz, capital of Bolivia. He also plotted to place a bomb at the Consulate of Chile, but was arrested before this could happen.Although the Bolivian police were unsure of the motive for the bombings that led to Amero's arrest, President Evo Morales declared: "This American was putting bombs in hotels... The U.S. government fights terrorism, and they send us terrorists", he said. Morales denounced the bombings as an attack on Bolivia's democracy. He called it "typical of terrorist crime." This caused a brief cooling of U.S.-Bolivian relations. Police described him as a "psychopath" who aimed to kill upwards of 200 people.
Deputy Interior Minister Rafael Puente told Radio Fides: "The possible motives behind these attacks are incomprehensible. There don't seem to be any concrete objectives other than causing deaths."