Trial against former Bolivian president Evo Morales suspended, arrest ordered

La Paz (EFE).- The trial against former Bolivian President Evo Morales (2006-2019) for alleged aggravated human trafficking was suspended on Monday until the former ruler appears before the court or police execute the arrest warrant against him. A tribunal declared Morales in contempt for failing to attend the start of the judicial proceedings.

The hearing for the start of the trial against Morales was installed at 8:30 am local time in Tarija. Due to the absence of the former president and his lawyers, the court declared him in contempt and issued orders for his arrest and for him to be barred from leaving the country (arraigo).

In compliance with the order issued by the Tarija Prosecutor’s Office, the National Directorate of Migration is ordered to «proceed with the national-level travel ban for Juan Evo Morales Ayma (…) within the criminal proceedings filed against him by the Attorney General Office for the crime of human trafficking.”

Lesly Alemán, departmental coordinator for the Tarija Prosecutor’s Office, explained to the media that, «given the unjustified failure of the accused to appear at the judicial authority’s summons, and since no justification was presented directly or by a third party, the Attorney General Office requested the ratification of the Declaration of Contempt,» as well as the arrest warrants.

Wilfredo Chávez, one of Morales’s lawyers, told the media in La Paz that the former president was not personally notified to attend the start of the trial, but rather through a judicial «edict,» which, in his opinion, constitutes a «fundamental procedural defect.»

Furthermore, he mentioned that the trial against the former president was «dusted off» at a time when there are several social protests against the government of President Rodrigo Paz, leading him to consider it «a political issue.»

Morales has remained since Oct. 2024 in the Tropics of Cochabamba, a coca-growing region in central Bolivia considered his political and union stronghold. He is under the custody of hundreds of his followers to prevent the execution of an arrest warrant against him in the aggravated human trafficking case.

At the time, the police could not execute an arrest warrant against Morales because his followers blocked roads for 24 days, between October and Nov. 2024, preventing officers from entering the region where he remains sheltered.

The former president is accused of allegedly having maintained a relationship with a minor, with whom he purportedly had a daughter while he was president of Bolivia in 2016.

During the preliminary investigation phase of the case, in early 2025, a judge had already declared the former president in contempt after he failed to appear twice at a hearing intended to resolve the accusation against him, citing health problems.

In Oct. 2025, the Attorney General Office presented the formal accusation against the former president. The Tarija Prosecutor’s Office reiterated that it gathered over 170 pieces of incriminating evidence for the oral trial, including 39 witness statements. EFE

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