Washington – Congress To Press State Department On Incarcerated American In Bolivia

Washington – A House panel on Wednesday will turn the heat up on the State Department to do more for an American citizen who’s on a hunger strike in a Bolivian jail.

Jacob Ostreicher is a New York businessman who was arrested last year on charges that he laundered money through a rice plantation he runs in Bolivia. Ostreicher says he was set up by a con artist.

His wife, Miriam Ungar, has been doing the rounds of TV shows – including New York’s local FOX affiliate, ABC Nightline and CNN’s Starting Point – prompting the House Foreign Affairs human rights subcommittee hearing.

The hearing, featuring Ostreicher’s wife and daughter and a retired FBI official, aims to expose what lawmakers are calling the State Department’s “inadequate response” to Ostreicher’s arrest and detention. His family want the Obama administration to secure his release on humanitarian grounds and have collected more than 35,000 signatures on a petition to President Obama urging the president to intervene.

In addition, four New York Democrats – Sens. Charles Schumer and Kristen Gillibrand and Reps. Jerrold Nadler and Nydia Velazquez – have written an open letter to the Bolivian government calling for Ostreicher to be granted bail. The case threatens to further damage U.S. relations with the leftist government of President Evo Morales, who is close to Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez and has taken issue with U.S. anti-narcotics tactics and policy.