Bolivia’s interim government is to file a case with the International Criminal Court (ICC) against former Bolivian president Evo Morales for “crimes against humanity,” Bolivian Minister of Government Arturo Murillo announced on Friday.
The government would file the lawsuit “in the next few days,” Murillo told state radio Patria Nueva.
The Hague, Netherlands-based court has jurisdiction to prosecute individuals for crimes against humanity.
Murillo last week filed a criminal complaint in Bolivia accusing Morales of sedition and terrorism, after he allegedly called on supporters to blockade cities and cut off fuel and food supplies.
The former president “must answer to justice for what he has done, and is doing, in addition to his accomplices who have participated in the tragic events that Bolivians have experienced,” Murillo said.
If Morales — who fled to Mexico after resigning on Nov. 10 — is charged and convicted in a Bolivian court, he would face a maximum penalty of 30 years in jail.
Morales has in turn accused the interim government of “genocide” following the deaths of 32 people, mostly his indigenous supporters, in post-election violence.
Morales denied wrongdoing and said that he was being persecuted for leading a pro-poor, pro-indigenous government and nationalizing the country’s gas and other natural resources.
The Bolivian Plurinational Legislative Assembly last week gave a green light for a new vote without Morales, Bolivia’s first indigenous president. He had been seeking a fourth term after nearly 14 years as leader of the poor but resource-rich country.
Meanwhile, Murillo expressed concern over the arrival in Bolivia of an Argentine human rights group.
“We recommend these foreigners who are arriving ... to be careful,” Murillo said. “We are looking at you. We are following you.”
“There is no tolerance for terrorism, sedition or armed movements. Zero tolerance,” he said.
The Argentine rights group said on Twitter: “While the de facto government accuses us of being terrorists, we have started what we came to do, take testimony of the different human rights violations that the Bolivian people are enduring.”
UNCERTAINTY: US Secretary of State Antony Blinken did not specify measures NATO might take, but many believe that the Nord Stream 2 pipeline project could be canceled The US has said it has evidence that Russia has made plans for a “large scale” attack on Ukraine and said NATO allies are “prepared to impose severe costs” on Moscow if it attempts an invasion. Speaking at a NATO ministers meeting in Latvia, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said that it was unclear whether Russian President Vladimir Putin had made a decision to invade, but added: “He’s putting in place the capacity to do so in short order, should he so decide.” “So despite uncertainty about intention and timing, we must prepare for all contingencies while working to see to
‘TRAVEL APARTHEID’: Biden’s top medical adviser said the US was considering lifting restrictions on travel from African nations imposed after the variant was discovered The Omicron variant of SARS-CoV-2 is rapidly spreading throughout the US, but early indications suggest it might be less dangerous than the Delta variant, which continues to drive a surge of hospitalizations, US health officials said on Sunday. US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Director Anthony Fauci told CNN’s State of the Union that scientists need more information before drawing conclusions about Omicron’s severity. Reports from South Africa, where it emerged and is becoming the dominant strain, suggest that hospitalization rates have not increased alarmingly. “Thus far, it does not look like there’s a great degree of severity to it,” Fauci
HOPEFUL: ‘We found a really good immune response across the board,’ even higher than with two doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine, the study’s lead author said A major British study on mixing COVID-19 vaccines has found that people had a better immune response when they received a first dose of the AstraZeneca or Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines followed by the Moderna vaccine nine weeks later, the results showed on Monday. “We found a really good immune response across the board ... in fact, higher than the threshold set by two doses of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine,” said Matthew Snape, the University of Oxford professor behind the trial dubbed Com-COV2. The findings supporting flexible dosing offer some hope to poor and middle-income countries that might need to combine different brands between the
South African hospitals are bracing for a surge in admissions as the Omicron variant of SARS-CoV-2 drives a sharp rise in COVID-19 infections and as more evidence emerges about the severity of the illness caused by the strain. The seven-day moving average of daily new cases in the country rose to 10,055 last week, from fewer than 300 three weeks earlier. Hospitalizations also picked up, but remain relatively low, with admissions standing at 3,268 on Sunday. Whether there would be a deluge of new patients is the biggest question. Severe symptoms in patients who contracted earlier variants typically developed between one and three
RSS