Evo Morales was summoned to testify in the case of trafficking and statutory rape – Diario La Página –

Former President Evo Morales was formally summoned to testify in the trafficking and statutory rape case in which he is being investigated for allegedly impregnating a teenager when he was head of state.

On Tuesday morning, four police officers from the Trafficking Division of the Special Force to Fight Crime (Felcc) personally delivered the notification to the coca federations office. Minutes before they had posted a copy on the door of their home, where they initially went but did not find it.

“Don Juan Evo Morales has received the notification, he has signed the agreement, the procedure has been complied with and a report will be prepared so that the authority that knows the case can assume knowledge of the procedure,” said Freddy Medinacelli, director of Felcc al Unitel channel.

The police chief explained that at first “there was not a very good reception” of the notification, but that he received it and signed it.

The State Attorney General, Juan Lanchipa, reported that the commission of prosecutors investigating the case decided to summon the former president on Thursday, October 10, in the city of Tarija (southern Bolivia) to give his statement. Along with him, two other people involved in the case must appear.

Given the call, the Coordinator of the Six Federations of the Cochabamba Tropics warned of “convulsion and insurgency” if the coca leader is arrested. “What is going to happen is serious in Bolivia. We do not guarantee anything, we are supporting the bases, (it will be) the Government’s responsibility if there is an insurgency and upheaval. We are not going to allow them to play, worse than imprisoning Evo,” warned Dieter Mendoza, leader of one of the federations cited by Red Uno.

The leader added that they are looking for “any excuse” to imprison the head of the Movement Towards Socialism (MAS) and that the only thing that the “corrupt” Justice is looking for is his imprisonment.

On the night of October 2, it was publicly known that there was an arrest warrant against Evo Morales for an investigation that began in 2019 during the interim government of Jeanine Añez in which he is accused of statutory rape and trafficking.

According to the complaint on which it is based, the former president would have had a daughter with a teenager in 2016, when she was 16 years old and he was 57. The birth certificate of their daughter was issued two years later in the town. of Yacuiba, bordering Argentina, and constitutes one of the evidence in the case.

The arrest warrant reveals that the young woman was linked to the former president since she was at least 15 years old and with the complicity of her parents, who would have obtained political benefits in exchange.

The arrest warrant issued on October 2 was void after a judge granted a release action in favor of Morales. The case was later declared judicially reserved to protect the minor involved.

The former president’s legal team has described the case as a “judicial persecution” in retaliation for the march that the coca leader led in mid-September against the Government of Luis Arce and reported that four other proceedings were opened against him. However, neither his lawyers nor Evo Morales have denied the commission of the crime.

The scandal involving the former president occurs at a key moment to define his political future, in the midst of the dispute for the leadership of the party and the candidacy for the 2025 presidential elections, with an electoral calendar that hastens the resignation due to internal conflicts. .