Sunday, October 13, 2024 - A Bolivian court has issued an arrest warrant for former president Evo Morales accused of statutory r@pe and human trafficking after he failed to testify this week.
Evo Morales is accused of fathering a child
with an unnamed 15-year-old child while in office in 2016, when he was 57-years
old.
The girl's parents are said to have agreed
to the relationship in return for unspecified 'political favours', the lawsuit
claims.
Morales, who resigned amid unrest over
disputed election results, claimed opponents were 'inventing accusations' to
'dismantle the... popular movement'.
According to the lawsuit, the unnamed
victim was a member of his political youth guard in 2015, when he is claimed to
have started a sexual relationship with her.
In 2016, the girl gave birth to a daughter,
whom Morales is accused of fathering.
He could face arrest for refusing the
summons by the prosecutor's office in the southern Tarija department.
The victim's parents also failed to testify
after being summoned and will be apprehended, too, as a result.
In Bolivia, statutory rape is a private
crime only investigated when there is a complaint from the victim of her
parents.
Morales' lawyer said his client considered
the probe "illegal," arguing that an investigation in 2020 into the
same claims was closed for lack of evidence.
The Tarija prosecutor who reopened the case
expanded it to include human trafficking and smuggling over suspicions that the
girl's parents enrolled her in his youth wing with the aim of political
advancement and personal gain.
Morales, who was elected Bolivia's
first Indigenous president in 2006, claims the allegations were fabricated by
the government of his arch-rival, current president Luis Arce, to try to
discredit him.
"The traitor government has unleashed
a judicial war, criminalized social protest and persecuted the political
opposition to try to outlaw us," Morales said.
'Lucho [Arce, incumbent president] is the
same as [former president, Jeanine] Áñez. Lucho is Áñez'.
'Everything is a product of the desperation
of the government, which has no answer to the crisis and has no electoral
possibilities.'
'This is further proof that this is a
right-wing government that does everything to comply with the dictates of the
White House,' he said in a rant on Twitter/X.
Morales insists that his opponents are
intentionally trying to discredit him for political reasons, and has called on
the government not to interfere with his 'family'.
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