EPABolivia’s authorities has rejected claims by the previous president, Evo Morales, that it ordered a focused assault on him.
Morales says his automobile got here below sustained gunfire on Sunday evening within the Cochabamba area, in what he condemned as an try on his life.
However Bolivia’s Inside Minister, Eduardo del Castillo, mentioned the previous president’s convoy had fled an anti-drugs patrol, throughout which his safety group fired at police and ran over an officer.
Evo Morales is concerned in an influence wrestle with President Luis Arce over who must be the Motion for Socialism (Mas) get together’s candidate in subsequent 12 months’s election.
On Sunday, Morales posted a video to social media which appeared to indicate not less than two bullet holes within the windscreen of a automobile within the entrance seat of which he was sitting.
In an announcement, a pro-Morales faction of the Mas get together mentioned males in black had fired on the car when it handed by a navy barracks. The faction mentioned it held President Arce’s authorities accountable.
However on Monday, del Castillo advised a information convention an anti-drug trafficking unit was on an ordinary freeway patrol when Morales’ convoy shot at police and ran over an officer.
“Mr Morales, nobody believes the theatre you have staged,” he added.
Morales has disputed this account, saying in a put up on X that he had been shot at “more than 18 times”. He had shot again after the police opened fireplace, he mentioned.
Morales, who was president from 2006 to 2019, is going through authorized points together with investigations for alleged statutory rape and human trafficking, which he denies.
For weeks, his supporters have blocked key roads across the nation and clashed with police.
Morales argues the accusations are a part of a right-wing vendetta towards him by the interim president who changed him in workplace after his resignation in 2019 following allegations of vote-rigging.
Each he and Arce have teams of loyal supporters prepared to take to the streets – and in some instances have interaction in road brawls – to indicate their backing for his or her candidate.
