The Attorney General of the State, Róger Mariaca, said that they will request six months of preventive detention in response to the official complaint and indictment for human trafficking and smuggling in the Departmental Prosecutor’s Office of Tarija.

On the other hand, after learning that an arrest warrant was issued against the former dignitary, the senator of the Movement for Socialism affiliated with Morales, Leonardo Loza, said that Morales was unaware of this process because he was never notified or summoned to his home in Chapare. According to the legislator, this determination against Morales expresses a “political fear” that the Government has of him, which is why he denounced that the process is political and due is not followed in Bolivia.

The prosecutor of the department of Tarija, Sandra Gutiérrez, confirmed on Monday that the former president was formally charged with the crime of human trafficking with the aggravating circumstance that he allegedly committed the crime when he was still president. The official reported that the arrest warrant against Morales was issued on October 16 for not appearing to testify in response to the complaint against him for the alleged relationship he had in 2015 with a minor.

Gutiérrez clarified that the police could not execute the arrest warrant against Morales because the operation could unleash organized resistance with the corresponding political and social risk in that region of the department of Cochabamba.

The prosecutor indicated that police reports speak of the fact that the areas of influence where the first indigenous former president of Bolivia is believed to be under protection, and his home is also uninhabited and without substantial movements.

Gutiérrez reiterated that he will request preventive detention and a migration alert because there is “a risk of flight, obstruction, and others that, at the time, in the hearing, we will substantiate, as well as all the facts, indications and evidence accumulated.”

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