To avoid arrest, Peru's ex-President Alan Garcia shoots himself

New Delhi : Peru's former President Alan Garcia died in a hospital in Lima on Wednesday after he shot himself in the head to avoid arrest in connection with a bribery probe.

69-year-old Alan was elected as Peru's president twice, first as a firebrand leftist and then as a champion of foreign investment and free trade. In recent couple of years, he was alleged of doing corruption.

Gracia was one of the nine people a judge had ordered to arrest on Wednesday for alleged involvement in bribes distributed by Odebrecht.

His party announced the death to crowds outside the Casimiro Ulloa hospital, where he suffered three cardiac arrests and underwent emergency surgery.

President Martin Vizcarra said he was “consternated” by Garcia’s death.

Garcia governed as a nationalist from 1985 to 1990 before remaking himself as a free-market proponent and winning another five-year term in 2006.