A Bolivian court has issued warrants for the arrest of the country’s ex-president and nine other people

La Paz, March 12 (RHC)-- A Bolivian court has issued warrants for the arrest of the country’s ex-president and nine other people, including ministers and top military officials, over their role in a coup against former president Evo Morales.

On Friday, state prosecutors called for former interim president Jeanine Añez to be detained, along with five government ministers and four military chiefs, after they were accused of sedition, terrorism and conspiracy.

Añez has reacted to the accusations, calling it “political persecution” on Twitter after learning she was wanted by the authorities.  Among others facing arrest are General Williams Kaliman and former police commander Yuri Calderon.  The latter called on then-president Evo Morales to resign in November 2019 despite the fact that he won the election, alleging the vote was rigged – a claim that was later debunked. 

Evo Morales was forced to go into exile after the Bolivian security forces sided with his opponents, with Anez’s 'interim' conservative government later taking power in the South American country.  However, she withdrew her candidacy from the next election in 2020 one day after polls showed the pro-Morales candidate in the lead.

Morales’ Movement for Socialism party, now led by Luis Arce, won Bolivia’s general election, ousting Anez and ending her government’s attempts to prosecute Morales’ supporters.  On Friday Bolivia’s former energy and justice ministers, respectively, Rodrigo Guzmán and Alvaro Coimbra, had also been arrested in the northern city of Trinidad and are to be transferred to the country’s administrative capital, La Paz.