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(JAVNO, REUTERS) Bolivia to Sue Hungarian for Complicity in Plot

Bolivia to Sue Hungarian for Complicity in Plot
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ReutersFile photo
TEXT Published: April 26, 2009 12:51h

Bolivia will sue a Hungarian journalist for allegedly covering up a plan to destabilize the country by a man killed in a police raid last week and accused of plotting to assassinate President Evo Morales.

In an interview last September, Bolivian Eduardo Rozsa told Hungarian reporter Andras Kepes that he would travel to Bolivia to support a separatist movement in Santa Cruz province, where opposition to leftist leader Morales is fiercest.

The interview was broadcast on Hungarian television only after Rozsa -- who also held Hungarian and Croatian passports -- died in the police raid on a Santa Cruz hotel, along with two alleged fellow conspirators, an Irishman and a Romanian.

Bolivia's deputy minister for social movements, Sacha Llorenti, accused Kepes on Friday of keeping a "complicit silence" by sitting on the interview for seven months.

"Those who cover up situations related to acts of terrorism should be charged and sanctioned," he told a late-night news conference, citing international laws.

"The attitude of this Hungarian journalist has been to cover up a situation that undermines our country's security. As a result, Bolivia will take all the appropriate legal actions both domestically and internationally to ensure this does not go unpunished," Llorenti said.

Kepes told the BBC on Wednesday that Rozsa had asked to keep the interview a secret, saying it would serve to explain his motivations if he were to die later.

Bolivian police also killed Irishman Michael Dwyer and Romanian-Hungarian citizen Arpad Magyarosi in the raid that has drawn criticism at home and abroad.

Two other men, whom local media identified as a Bolivian and a Hungarian-Croatian, were also arrested in the police operation. Authorities said sniper rifles, high-caliber guns and explosives were confiscated in a nearby building.

The Irish and Hungarian governments have questioned the Bolivian account that the men had plotted to kill Morales and other leading public figures to create a "spiral of violence" that would destabilize Bolivia.

Four of Bolivia's nine provinces voted last year for greater autonomy from the central government, underscoring a sometimes violent power struggle between the mostly indigenous Western highlands -- represented by Morales -- and wealthier eastern regions.

Opposition leaders in eastern, resource-rich Santa Cruz province have called the supposed plot an "international show," condemning the police action as an "execution" despite government assurances that the men were killed in a shootout.

Labels: ASSASSINATION, BOLIVIA, EVO MORALES

posted by MrK @ 5:41 PM