“Mr. Morales, no one believes the theater you staged,” Interior Minister Eduardo del Castillo told a news conference.

He added that Morales, who claims the government tried to kill him, will “have to answer … for the crime of attempted murder” of a police officer.

Del Castillo claimed that the car in which Morales was traveling did not stop at a checkpoint set up by police to combat drug trafficking in the central province of Chapare, one of the country’s biggest producers of coca, the raw material for cocaine.

He said police signaled for the vehicle to slow down and stop, but the driver instead accelerated and “shots were fired from a vehicle.”

He said one officer was hit but survived, before a police patrol followed Morales’ car and fired at it.

Morales, who is embroiled in a weeks-long standoff with former ally-turned-rival President Luis Arce, said on Sunday his car was riddled with bullets from masked assailants as he drove to a radio station from the city of Cochabamba.