Local media report the former Peruvian leader is in a coma after shooting himself.
Peru’s former President Alan Garcia shot himself early on Wednesday after police arrived at his home in the capital Lima to arrest him in connection with a bribery investigation, a lawyer for the former leader said.
Lawyer Erasmo Reyna confirmed the shooting to local television outlet N.
Judicial orders obtained by The Associated Press said an order for Garcia’s arrest had been issued.
The ex-president was taken to a nearby hospital after the incident.
Local TV channel America reported Garcia went into a coma after undergoing emergency surgery, and broadcast images of Garcia’s son and supporters arriving at the hospital.
“Right now he’s being operated on. Let’s pray to God to give him strength,” Reyna said in broadcast comments.
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 corruption scandal when it admitted publicly in 2016 that it won lucrative contracts in the region with bribes.
Corruption has plagued Peruvian politics for decades. The country’s last five presidents have either been jailed on corruption charges or are currently under investigation for fraud.
Fomer President Pedro Pablo Kucyznski was detained last week as part of a money laundering probe into his ties to the Odebrecht.
Congressional allies of Kuczynski said he was also taken Tuesday night to a local clinic with high blood pressure.
A Peruvian judge last week ordered Kuczynski’s detention for 10 days as he investigates some $782,000 in previously undisclosed payments from Brazilian construction giant Odebrecht more than a decade ago. A hearing is scheduled to take place later on Wednesday to decide whether to
increase his detention to three years.
Opposition leader Keiko Fujimori is also embroiled in an ongoing corruption investigation related to undeclared financial contributions to her 2011 presidential campaign.
