Paz assures that Morales will go to prison for alleged child trafficking
The Bolivian president reiterated that the former president must face justice for charges of aggravated trafficking, while remaining at large with an arrest warrant in effect.
Paz assures that Morales will go to prison for alleged child trafficking
Bolivia's head of state, Rodrigo Paz Pereira, predicted on Sunday that former president Evo Morales will end up imprisoned as a result of the serious charges against him. During an official event in the southern zone of Cochabamba—where he presided over the delivery of a drinking water project—the president responded to shouts from the crowd calling for the imprisonment of the MAS leader.
Morales is being investigated for the alleged crime of aggravated trafficking. The accusation alleges that, during his presidential term in 2016, he maintained a romantic relationship with an adolescent, from which relationship a girl was born. The country's public prosecutor's office formalised the complaint and the Tarija courts issued a ruling of default against him, activating an arrest warrant that has so far not been able to be carried out.
The oral trial hearings have been suspended and have been rescheduled on repeated occasions, given that officers have been unable to locate the defendant to carry out the arrest. This situation of judicial impasse was the context in which Paz lashed out against the man who governed between 2006 and 2019.
In another section of his speech, the president launched a harsh reflection on civic coexistence. He imagined a hypothetical scenario in which Morales lived beside him and said that, if he had a young daughter, he would not feel protected. The comment was part of a broader discourse in favour of public morality and institutional respect.
Paz also took the opportunity to condemn the road blockades occurring in the Chapare and other points in Cochabamba. He maintained that these protests obstruct national progress and put lives at risk by preventing the passage of ambulances and the supply of fuel. "That Bolivia we must overcome together," he said, cited by El Deber.
Source: El Deber