Milintican police raid opposition party, arrest activists
Party activists accused of assassination attempts in October 2020
In an operation at offices of the Milintica Isolationist Party throughout Milintica today, the National Police, backed by agents from the National Directorate of Intelligence and Prevention, seized MIP party records and arrested several dozen MIP activists.
The MIP activists are accused of being behind an attempt to assassinate President Matōchmizalo and Prime Minister Tupai Tapihana on October 28th, 2020. "We were able to identify several members of the MIP as being behind the attempt on the lives of the President and the Prime Minister. We believe that the motive was to prevent our involvement in the civil conflict in Xiomera, as the MIP seeks to prevent any involvement by Milintica with other nations, particularly Xiomera," Hotu Poutapu, Commander of the National Police, told DTNS today. "The records and surveillance we have found so far support this theory, and we expect to find further evidence in the records we confiscated today from both the raided MIP offices and from detained individuals," Poutapu said.
President Matōchmizalo told DTNS after the arrests that "if any evidence is found to show the MIP leadership was behind this crime, and it was not just some rogue members of theirs, there will be serious consequences for the MIP as a whole and for anyone involved individually."
MIP leaders were quick to claim that the assassination attempts were "not conducted by our party as an organized effort, if they truly even involved members of our party at all," in the words of Chuarca, the MIP Chairwoman. "It is entirely possible the MPP and the government are framing us to get rid of us," Chuarca added, saying that the MIP would "demand irrefutable proof be laid before the nation, before our party is targeted."
Observers have expressed concern that the accusation and arrests could lead to upheaval in the volatile Milintican political system. While the MIP is the smallest political party to hold power in the country, with just four seats in the Representative Assembly, its members are "extremely paranoid and prone to violence," Cuyche, a former Milintican national police commander, told DTNS. "They are not likely to accept any government action against them without retaliation."
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