Bolivian Judge Declares Evo Morales in Contempt for Failing to Appear in Statutory Rape Trial

A Bolivian judge on Monday held former President Evo Morales in contempt after he failed to appear in court for a trial where he faces charges of trafficking a minor, local newspaper La Razon reported. The ruling came as the trial was supposed to open in the southern city of Tarija.

Morales is accused of having a relationship with a teenager and having a child with her in 2016 while he was in office.

Morales served three terms as Bolivia’s first indigenous president from 2006 to 2019. He resigned following a disputed election that plunged the country into turmoil. The former leader has been in hiding from an arrest warrant issued in the case in his central Bolivian stronghold of Chapare since late 2024.

There his supporters stand ready to resist a police raid targeting the former leader. Thousands of supporters have protested the investigation. Morales was previously declared in contempt of court in January 2025 when he did not appear for a pretrial detention hearing.

Last week, Morales wrote on social media that he was a victim of “legal warfare” and that “the government is carrying out against me a brutal judicial and media persecution with fabricated charges to annihilate me morally and physically”. @SCMPNews reported the details of the contempt ruling and the background of the case.

The trial involves charges of trafficking a minor, according to the same reporting.

The sequence of legal actions against Morales stretches back more than a year. His absence from the January 2025 pretrial detention hearing first triggered a contempt finding, setting the stage for Monday’s renewed ruling when he again failed to appear.