Lima — 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 police source said. Garcia underwent emergency surgery at the Casimiro Ulloa hospital and suffered three cardiac arrests, health minister Zulema Tomas said in broadcast comments. She said he was in "very critical" condition.

Local TV channel America reported Garcia was in a coma and broadcast images of Garcia's son, supporters and legislators entering the hospital, where police in riot gear stood by. "Let's pray to God to give him strength," Erasmo Reyna, Garcia's lawyer, told journalists at the hospital. Garcia, a skilled orator who has led Peru's once-powerful Apra party for decades, governed as a nationalist from 1985 to 1990 before remaking himself as a free-market proponent and winning another five-year term in 2006. Garcia was under investigation in connection with Brazilian construct...

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