Bolivian judge orders arrest of ex-president Evo Morales in sex abuse case
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Populist leader allegedly had a child with a teen girl in 2016, which would constitute statutory rape under Bolivian law. A Bolivian judge has ordered the arrest of the former president Evo Morales over his alleged abuse of a teenage girl while in office, raising the stakes in the state’s months-long showdown with the former leader.
The judge in the southern city of Tarija called for Morales, 65, to be arrested after Bolivia’s first Indigenous president ducked out of a hearing on his possible pretrial detention for a second time. The ruling, which was broadcast on state television, also included a freeze of Morales’s assets and a ban on him leaving the country.
“There’s been a warrant ordered for his search and arrest,” said Judge Nelson Rocabado after a hearing in Tarija, where the alleged victim lives. Morales, who rose from dire poverty to become one of Latin America’s longest-serving leaders, has brought thousands of people onto the street in the past few months to protest the investigation.
He is accused of abusing a 15-year-old girl while president in 2015 and fathering a child with her the following year, which would have constituted statutory rape under Bolivian law. He has neither confirmed nor denied the allegations. Prosecutors have charged him with trafficking in the belief that the girl’s parents enrolled her in the youth guard of Morales’s political movement when he was president “with the sole purpose of climbing the political ladder and obtaining benefits ... in exchange for their underage daughter”.
