Lourdes Alcorta remembers Alan García 3 years after his death: “Peru was torn off the last great reference in politics”

Former congressman Lourdes Alcorta recalled former president Alan García through her social media this Sunday, at the third anniversary of his death. On April 17, 2019, the aprista leader shot himself while the police arrested him in his home.

“Today April 17, 3 years after the departure of Alan García Perez... Great friend, great politician who was led to death. Peru was torn off the last major benchmark of Peruvian politics. A regrettable loss and a deep sorrow...” wrote in a tweet.

It is recalled that on April 17, 2019, at 6:30 a.m., García Pérez was at his home in Miraflores when prosecutor Henry Amenábar Almonte informed him that he was coming to execute a judicial measure of search, unlocking and preliminary detention for ten days against him. The prosecutor was accompanied by six police officers from the Division of High Complexity Investigation (Diviac).

“The former president said he was going to make a phone call to his lawyer. He entered his room and closed the door behind him,” said the former Minister of the Interior, Carlos Morán, at the time.

According to images obtained of the incident, the former president then went up the stairs of his house, entered a room and a gunshot was heard. The authorities found him next to his bed, after having been shot in the head.

Alan García died in Casimiro Ulloa hospital due to cerebral hemorrhage, due to a firearm shell, and cardiorespiratory arrest.

WHAT WAS ALAN GARCIA BEING INVESTIGATED INTO?

The prosecution was investigating Alan Garcia for the alleged crime of money laundering. More specifically, they accused him of receiving bribes from the Odebrecht company in his second government (from 2006 to 2011) for the execution of sections 1 and 2 of line 1 of the Lima Metro and for benefit it during the construction of the Interoceanic Highway.

The tax thesis stated that part of these bribes were received in a payment of $100,000 for a conference in São Paulo. The rest would have been received through former government officials Luis Nava and Miguel Atala. Nava was suspected of receiving about $4 million from Fund 2 in Odebrecht.

On the other hand, he was also accused of having received contributions from Odebrecht for his 2006 election campaign.

In 2018, Jorge Barata, former Odebrecht representative in Peru, said he had given $200,000 to Alan García's campaign, through Luis Alva Castro, another member of APRA. Therefore, in 2018, the judiciary issued an order to prevent departure from the country for 18 months.

HIS LAST WORDS

During the wake of the former president, his daughter Lucia Garcia read the last message he left written, insisting on his innocence in the Lava Jato corruption scandal , for which he was going to be arrested when he took his own life.

“I've seen others parade in handcuffs, guarding their miserable existence, but Alan Garcia doesn't have to suffer these injustices and circuses,” the letter said.

In it, he also assures that, in his case, “there were and will not be any accounts, no bribes, no wealth (...)”. “That's why I repeated: others are sold, I don't,” he adds.

“They never found anything and I defeated them again, because they will never find more than their speculations and frustrations.” “That is why I leave to my children the dignity of my decisions; to my peers, a sign of pride. And my corpse as a sign of my contempt for my adversaries, because I have already fulfilled the mission that I set myself.”

Finally, Garcia asked the “God” to whom he goes “with dignity”, to “protect the kind-hearted and the humblest.”

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