Former Bolivian president Luis Arce reportedly detained by police | Bolivia

[ad_1] Bolivia’s former president Luis Arce was reportedly detained and brought to police headquarters on Wednesday.

His former presidency minister, María Nela Prada Tejada, posted a video on social media saying she had acquired data from “unofficial sources” that Arce had been “illegally kidnapped” by police.

The police haven't commented on the alleged detention, however the vice-president, Edmand Lara, posted a video on social media congratulating a specialist police unit “for having apprehended Luis Arce, in compliance with a decision issued by a prosecutorial authority”.

Arce served as Bolivia’s president till final November, when he handed over the sash to the centre-right former senator Rodrigo Paz Pereira, who gained the runoff in an election that ended practically 20 years of dominance by the leftist Movimiento al Socialismo (Mas).

Lara added: “We stated that Luis Arce can be the primary to go to jail, and we're delivering. Everybody who has stolen from this nation will return each final cent and be held to account.” The vice-president is a former police officer who grew to become well-known on TikTok for making alleged corruption accusations.

The state broadcaster Bolivia TV posted that Arce was “giving an announcement earlier than” the police “whereas employees from the workplace of the ombudsman accompany him”. It famous the involvement of the Particular Pressure to Battle Crime’s division for the investigation of illicit good points.

Outdoors the headquarters of the FELCC within the capital, La Paz, the place the previous president had supposedly been taken, Tejada informed journalists she was attempting to enter the constructing to acquire extra data.

She stated Arce “was alone” within the Sopocachi neighbourhood of La Paz, when he was allegedly “put right into a minibus with blacked-out home windows” and brought to the FELCC.

“I’m arriving now to seek out out … No, there was no notification of any variety, and I’m coming to see below what procedures they introduced him right here,” she added.

Tejada stated she discovered from “unofficial sources” that the rationale for the detention “can be the Indigenous fund case”, referring to a authorities fund meant to channel a part of hydrocarbon tax revenues into improvement tasks for Indigenous peoples.

Throughout the early years of the administration of the previous president Evo Morales , below whom Arce served as finance minister, Bolivia skilled astonishing progress, lifting 1000's out of poverty – significantly many Indigenous and rural communities – due to a pure fuel increase.

The “Indigenous fund” was shut down in 2015 after a corruption scandal involving the alleged misappropriation of assets.

Investigations have been revived after Paz Pereira took workplace – the president established at the very least 10 commissions to audit and examine Mas administrations, certainly one of them targeted on the “Indigenous fund”.

Final Friday, the previous Mas deputy Lidia Patty was additionally arrested by the FELCC. She is accused of getting acquired, in her private account, funds for the execution of tasks that have been by no means carried out.

Native media reported that, within the request for Arce’s detention, the general public prosecutor Miguel Ángel Cardozo alleged that when Arce was economic system minister he had “violated current rules by authorising the switch of public funds into private accounts”.