Bolivian prosecutor Sandra Gutiérrez denounced on Wednesday that the nation’s Attorney General Juan Lanchipa fired her after ordering her to invalidate an arrest warrant she obtained for socialist former President Evo Morales.
Morales is facing accusations of human trafficking and statutory rape.
The now-dismissed warrant against the socialist former president stems from an investigation that started in 2019 after evidence was found in the southern city of Tarija indicating Morales had a sexual relationship with a 15-year-old girl during his presidency in 2016. The girl reportedly had his child a year later. According to local media, the old case was “reactivated” last week.
Morales ruled Bolivia between 2006 and 2019. While the Bolivian constitution establishes maximum two two-term limits for the president and vice president, Morales bypassed the term limits by strongarming the Bolivian court system into issuing rulings that allowed him to run for president beyond the constitutional restrictions — including a now-dismissed ruling issued in 2017 that allowed him to run for a fourth time in 2019 under the premise that presidential term limits represented a “violation” of his human rights.
Morales “won” the highly fraudulent October 2019 presidential election and voluntarily resigned shortly afterwards following widespread protests. He returned to the country in 2020 and is presently conducting efforts to illegally run for president for a fifth time amidst an ongoing schism between himself and former protegé and successor, current President Luis Arce. The feud between the two presidents has split the ruling Movement Towards Socialism Party (MAS) party into two factions.
Gutiérrez, who up until her recent dismissal served as a local prosecutor in Tarija, told reporters on Wednesday that Attorney General Juan Lanchipa fired her after she issued the arrest warrant against Morales. Gutiérrez accused Lanchipa of protecting Morales in the human trafficking and statutory rape investigation.
“For me this is persecution and I denounce it publicly. I also [make] a complaint to the international community about how the prosecutor Juan Lanchipa Ponce, who swore to defend the rules and society,” she said, “has come out to stop all investigations that we are carrying out when it comes to the former President Juan Evo Morales Ayma, where there is a crime against humanity, which is trafficking and smuggling.”
The prosecutor commented that the arrest warrant “fell through” due to a legal appeal presented at a court in the city of Santa Cruz one hour before it warrant was activated. The appeal was accepted by the jurisdictional authority. Gutiérrez explained that, not only was the arrest warrant against Morales dismissed, but she and two other prosecutors were dismissed “almost at the same time” the arrest warrant did.
“I arrived at the Tarija Prosecutor’s Office, they did not let me in and they handed me the resolution. They told me that Dr. Juan Lanchipa would call me to ask for my resignation, which I did not do, so I was dismissed. This is a persecution and I am going to denounce it before the international community,” Gutiérrez said.
The now-dismissed arrest warrant reportedly stated that the investigation focused on an incident that occurred in May 2018, when a birth certificate issued in Tarija listed Morales and the 16-year-old child as the parents of a baby. The judicial report detailed that the relationship between Morales and the minor would have begun when she was 15 years old.
“The outcome was that the minor aged 15 became pregnant by Mr. Juan Evo Morales Ayma,” the prosecutor’s document reportedly read.
The Prosecutor’s Office noted the child was enrolled by her parents in a youth organization affiliated with Morales known as the “Youth Guard of President Evo Morales Ayma,” created in the mid-2010s and made up of teenagers aged 14 and 15 years old. According to the prosecutor’s documents, the parents sought to “climb politically and obtain benefits,” stressing that the minor “was pressured and practically forced” to maintain a relationship with Morales.
According to reports, the investigation found that the girl’s parents received material benefits such as trips and public positions allegedly facilitated by Morales.
“The parents enrolled their daughter in this youth guard in order to be able to climb the political ladder and obtain benefits,” the document reportedly stated.
The Prosecutor’s Office document concludes that “there are indications of criminal responsibility for citizen Juan Evo Morales Ayma, in a degree of probability as the author” of the crimes of human trafficking.
Morales’ lawyer Cecilia Urquieta claimed to the local channel Red Uno on Wednesday evening that the accusations of trafficking and statutory rape against the former president are “fabricated” and “false.”
“I repeat, this is a fabricated case, which does not sufficiently fulfill the necessary elements,” Urquieta said. “I could say that it is false because there has never been any evidence, neither previously nor now, from the victims, no formal complaint about this case. Now they have searched for cases … there are five cases that have been initiated against former president Evo Morales in the last four days.”
The lawyer asserted that Morales is presently in the city of Cochabamba under the protection of his loyalists following the arrest warrant news.
“Evo Morales is in the tropics and guarded by the people of the Cochabamba tropics. Evo Morales has no reason to be in hiding. He has not committed any crime, until today they have not been able to prove any crime, and the detention that was intended to be carried out today is an illegal detention,” she said.
Carlos Romero, a close ally of Morales and his former Interior minister, claimed on Wednesday that the socialist former president is “being protected” by coca farmers in Chapare, Cochabamba for fear of being arrested.
“Brothers and sisters from the Tropics [Chapare] have mobilized clandestinely, they have become the watchmen, the bodyguards, the protectors of the life of Evo Morales,” Romero said, adding that there are at least five ongoing legal proceedings against Morales including the human trafficking and statutory rape case in Tarija.
Christian K. Caruzo is a Venezuelan writer and documents life under socialism. You can follow him on Twitter here.
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