Former Peru leader kills himself prior to arrest

PERU’S former President Alan Garcia died in a hospital in Lima yesterday, hours after shooting himself in the head to avoid arrest in connection with a bribery probe, authorities said.

Members of his party announced his death to crowds gathered outside of hospital Casimiro Ulloa, where he suffered three cardiac arrests and underwent emergency surgery.

Garcia, a skilled orator who has led Peru’s once-powerful Apra party for decades, governed Peru as a nationalist from 1985 to 1990 before remaking himself as a free-market proponent and winning a new five-year term in 2006.

Garcia was under investigation in connection with Brazilian construction company Odebrecht, which triggered Latin America’s biggest graft scandal when it admitted publicly in 2016 that it won lucrative contracts in the region with bribes. Last year, Garcia asked Uruguay for political asylum after he was banned from leaving the country to keep him from fleeing or obstructing the investigation. Uruguay rejected the request.

He has repeatedly denied wrongdoing.

In Peru, criminal suspects can be ordered to spend up to three years in jail before trial if prosecutors can show they have evidence that likely would lead to a conviction and the suspect would likely flee or try to interfere in the investigation.

(Reuters)