The Bolivian government on Monday accused former president Evo Morales of orchestrating an assassination attempt on himself, following reports of shots fired at his vehicle on Sunday. Interior Minister Eduardo del Castillo claimed Morales staged the event, which allegedly took place after Morales’s car failed to stop at a police checkpoint.
“Mr Morales, nobody believes the theater you have staged,” said Del Castillo at a news conference, asserting that Morales would have to answer for the crime of attempted murder of a police officer.
According to Del Castillo, the car carrying Evo Morales accelerated instead of stopping when signalled by police conducting a drug trafficking operation in Chapare province, a major coca-growing region. Shots were allegedly fired from a vehicle during the incident, and an officer was reportedly hit by Morales’s car but survived. A police patrol then chased the car and fired at it, said the minister.
Evo Morales, who has been at odds with President Luis Arce, said his vehicle was attacked by masked assailants, wounding his driver but leaving him unharmed. Video footage from a local radio station showed a truck with three bullet holes in the windshield and a driver with a head wound.