Former chief denies prices over alleged diversion of funds meant for Indigenous growth tasks
Printed On 13 Dec 2025
A Bolivian decide has ordered former President Luis Arce to stay in detention for 5 months whereas prosecutors examine allegations he embezzled millions of dollars from a fund meant for Indigenous communities.
Arce, who left workplace only a month in the past, appeared earlier than Choose Elmer Laura in a digital listening to on Friday, two days after his arrest on the streets of La Paz.
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The decide rejected appeals from Arce’s authorized group for his launch and dominated he should await trial in one of many capital’s largest prisons, citing the seriousness of prices that “instantly have an effect on state belongings and sources allotted to susceptible sectors”.
No trial date has been set.
The accusations centre on Arce’s time as financial system minister beneath former President Evo Morales between 2006 and 2017, when authorities say he oversaw the diversion of roughly $700m from a state fund created to channel pure fuel revenues into growth tasks for Indigenous peoples and peasant farmers.
Inside minister of the brand new right-wing authorities, Marco Antonio Oviedo, has described the 62-year-old former president as “the principal particular person accountable” for approving transfers of enormous sums into private accounts of presidency officers for tasks that have been by no means accomplished.
Arce maintained his innocence throughout Friday’s listening to, saying he had no private involvement in managing the fund and dismissing the case as politically motivated. “I’m a scapegoat,” he informed the decide. “The accusations are politically motivated.”
His defence legal professionals had requested his launch on well being grounds, noting his earlier battle with kidney most cancers.
Nonetheless, Choose Laura denied the attraction and exceeded the prosecution’s request of three months’ detention by ordering 5 months in a state jail slightly than a juvenile facility.
The case first emerged virtually a decade in the past in 2015 when the Indigenous fund was shut down amid corruption allegations, however investigations stalled through the years of Motion Towards Socialism governance.
The probe was revived after conservative President Rodrigo Paz took workplace final month, ending almost twenty years of left-wing rule in Bolivia.
Paz campaigned on guarantees to root out corruption on the highest ranges as Bolivia grapples with its worst financial disaster in 40 years. His vp, Edmand Lara, celebrated Arce’s arrest on social media, declaring that “everybody who has stolen from this nation will return each final cent”.
Former ministers in Arce’s administration have condemned the arrest as an abuse of energy and political persecution towards the Motion Towards Socialism celebration.
If convicted, Arce faces as much as six years in jail.
