Bolivia “Assassins” ‘Fought in Balkan Wars’

Two members of a mercenary gang said to have plotted to kill Bolivian President Evo Morales were veterans of the Balkan wars of the 1990s, reports say.

A Bolivian judge jailed two suspects in an alleged plot to kill President Evo Morales as investigations continue.

Judge Betty Yaniquez told reporters there is enough evidence to imprison the survivors of a shootout with police. Three other members of an alleged band of assassins were killed in a raid by police on Thursday in the lowland eastern city of Santa Cruz.

Prosecutor Edward Mollinedo says the suspects, Elot Toazo and Mario Tadik Astorga, are being held on terrorism charges, but refused to be provide more detail. Representatives for the suspects could not be reached.

Tadik Astorga, 58, a Bolivian-Croatian who apparently fought in the Balkans, and Toazo, a Hungarian computer science expert, were being transferred to a jail in La Paz.

Bolivia launched an investigation on Friday into a suspected militant group that police say was plotting to kill President Evo Morales, but the opposition slammed the probe as an "international show."

Three suspected mercenaries were killed in a shootout on Thursday in the anti-Morales stronghold of Santa Cruz after police moved to arrest a gang that officials say traveled from Ireland or Croatia to kill leading public figures in the Andean nation.

"The investigative work is now in the hands of prosecutors. I hope they do their work quickly so we can have clear and concrete information" about who was behind the conspiracy, police chief Victor Hugo Escobar told state television.

Interpol has offered to help Bolivia with the investigation. But opposition Senate chief Oscar Ortiz said investigators "should aim to find the truth, instead of helping the president stage an international show".

Ortiz attacked Morales for "playing the victim" and said the country's first indigenous leader was trying to disparage the eastern city of Santa Cruz because he lacked support there.

Morales has accused right-wing politicians and business leaders in Santa Cruz of organizing violent protests there last year to try to destabilize his government.