October 10, 2024, 2:42 PM
October 10, 2024, 2:42 PM
The former Government Minister and lawyer, Jorge Pérez, will represent former president Evo Morales at the hearing this afternoon at the Comprehensive Police Station (EPI), in the Lourdes neighborhood (Tarija), to assume his defense of the alleged human trafficking and smuggling.
Pérez stated that The former Bolivian president will not be able to attend because “there are no legal guarantees” to appear before the commission of prosecutors that opened this process.
“We moved to Tarija to follow up and make the corresponding representation in the technical defense of citizen Evo Morales,” stated the former authority.
Within hours of the hearing, Pérez made it clear that this criminal process against the former president “was born dead” because it does not correspond after it was archived in 2020 when he was accused of statutory rape after there were not enough elements to move forward.
Four years later, according to Morales’ lawyer, the investigation was reopened, modifying the typology of the crime for human trafficking and smuggling.
“The constitutional system of the region, the IACHR, the Pact of San José of Costa Rica, the Political Constitution of the State (CPE) and the Code of Criminal Procedure prohibit a person from being prosecuted twice,” Pérez mentioned.
On the other hand, Morales’ lawyer considered that the judges and the Departmental Prosecutor’s Office of Tarija have the obligation to refer the proceedings of this case for human trafficking and smuggling to the Judicial District of Villa Tunari (Cochabamba), where the former president resides.
He added that, if they did not do so, they would be committing illegal acts if the Rule of Competencies established in article 49 of the Code of Criminal Procedure is not complied with.
