The Deputy Prosecutor for Gender confirmed that it now has two criminal complaints against former president Óscar Arias Sánchez for alleged sexual assault. Those accusations were registered as file #19000098994-PE in the Prosecutor's Office and subject to investigation.

Mr Arias won the country's presidency from 1986 to 1990. His role in the negotiation of a peace agreement to stop the Central American Wars earned him the Nobel Peace Prize in 1987. In 2006 he won re-election as Costa Rican president from 2006 to 2010.

The first complaint was made on Monday of last week by a woman surnamed Arce.  Reported in A.M. Costa Rica, this complain was published by Semanario Universidad, the woman filed a sexual assault accusation against Mr. Arias at the Public Prosecutor's Office.

According to Arce testimony published by Semanario Universidad, "he grabbed me from behind and touched my breasts. I told him no and that he was married, that was my no. I did not know what I really did,  and I thought that this was the only line of defense,  because I had this fear that if I refused, he would not cooperate with us anymore. He has kept touching me, he has put his fingers in my vagina and he has touched me all and he kissed me. And then he told me to wait a moment and left the office. I was like I did not know what to do, I felt trapped at that moment."

The second official complaint was made on Thursday of the last week, by a woman surnamed Morales at the office of the Deputy Prosecutor for Gender.

Ms Morales published an article entitled "My bad experience with Oscar Arias" in the magazine Profile (Perfil). In the article, she explained in 2013 she, "had an interview with Arias about the arms trade treaty at his house. When at the end of the interview he sat at his desk to look for some photos on his computer. He said to me (with a gesture) that I would sit on his leg so we could see the screen. I remember that I mentioned that:  if his wife was not going to get angry?. His wife was on the cover of our magazine in February of that year, I told him that I had interviewed her and that she was an admirable lady. The situation did not go further. There was no sexual assault, luckily," said Ms. Morales.

Other women made accusations of similar behavior but did not file complaints at the prosecutor’s office. Instead, they went public in newspapers.

One was journalist Emma Daly, who works for the Human Rights Watch organization made public accusations in an interview in the Washington Post. According to Ms. Daly,  Mr. Arias groped her in 1990 when she was a reporter covering Central America issues,  and Mr. Arias was also at the Intercontinental Hotel in Managua, Nicaragua. Ms. Daly said she asked a question and instead of answering the question, Mr. Arias put his hand between her breasts and exclaimed, "You're not wearing a bra." Ms. Daly said that she responded, "Yes, I am."

Another was Ana Eleonora Antillón in an interview covered by local newspaper La Nacion said that when she was 25 years old, she was working as a press adviser for Arias in the electoral campaign of the National Liberation Party before the 1986 elections. "I was sitting in front of his desk, he came to me, took my hand and put it on his erect penis, I pushed him and I stood up and he threw himself at me, grabbed me by the shoulders, threw me against a closet and began to touch me. With the noise, somebody began to knock on the door. From then on I did not accept to be alone with him".