Three women denounced former Costa Rican president and Nobel Peace Prize winner Oscar Arias for sexual assault

The wave of denunciations of the #metoo movement has devastated one of Costa Rica's most prestigious figures. Three women denounces former president and Nobel Peace Prize winner Oscar Arias for rape and badual abuse. The 78-year-old man rejected the charge in a statement and said he would defend himself in court.

The first case

The first complaint was made public Monday by the Weekly University. The alleged victim, Alexandra Arce von Herold, a 34-year-old doctor and activist, said the attack had taken place four years ago – in December 2014 – during a visit to the home. Arias in San José.

The victim was one of the leaders of the Costa Rican subsidiary of an international NGO for the abolition of nuclear weapons and had visited the former president twice, to solicit support for his campaign.

"When we finished, I got up with my back. he caught me from behind and touched my bads", said the doctor at the university newspaper, although she asked him to stop talking, Arias" continued to touch her ", kissed her and put her fingers in her bad.

The woman explained that this episode had caused profound upheavals in her life and that she had not denounced her at that time because she feared that a confrontation with Arias would harm the campaign for nuclear disarmament. The complaint was lodged Monday in front of the prosecutor's office of Costa Rica, in accordance with University. Arias could be sentenced to up to 16 years in prison.

In response, the former president of Central America issued a statement in which he "categorically" rejected this accusation. "I have never acted by not respecting the wishes of a woman"he said.

In addition, she claimed to have worked during her public life to promote gender equality. "Well, I consider that it is an indispensable means to create a more just and equitable society for all," he added.

The other complaints against Arias

However, since then two other women reported who have been victims of Arias. The Costa Rican journalist Eleonor Antillón told the newspaper The nation What more than 30 years agowhile she was a press advisor to Arias, she was the victim of a harbadment by the former president, then candidate for the presidency in the 1986 elections.

"She was sitting in front of her desk, he approached me, took my hand and laid it on his penis which was erect. I pushed him and I got up and he threw himself on me, "said the reporter, who confessed that she had never denounced the facts "the company is not ready to believe us".

The British journalist Emma Daly, who lived in Costa Rica in the 1980s and worked for the English-language newspaper The Tico Times, said that she had been harbaded by Arias in 1990 during a visit to the country. former president in Managua.

Daly, current director of communications at Human Rights Watch, told the newspaper The Washington Post He asked Arias a question in the lobby of a hotel, but the then president, instead of answering, touched his chest and told him "you do not wear a bodice".

Nervous, she only managed to answer, "Yes, I'll take it." He did not denounce it either because he felt that it had not been done during those years in Central America.

Arias, 78, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1987 for his participation in peace processes that could end armed conflict in Central America. He ruled Costa Rica in two periods (1986-1990 and 2006-2010).