LA PAZ, NOV 21 (AFP/APP/DNA):Bolivia’s president fired his justice minister, then scrapped the ministry altogether, after discovering the man inaugurated just two weeks earlier had failed to disclose a three-year prison sentence.
The minister, former lawyer Freddy Vidovic, was sentenced in 2015 to three years’ imprisonment for bribery and aiding the attempted escape of a businessman with links to a former president serving time for corruption.
As Vidovic’s past became public, President Rodrigo Paz replaced him with Jorge Franz Garcia in a decree published Thursday.
Later in the day, the president said he had also decided to abolish the justice ministry, leaving Garcia’s fate uncertain.
Paz recalled that he had promised during his election campaign to shutter the ministry, which he claimed had been abused by his rivals on the left of the political spectrum for decades.
“Today, I am keeping my word…the ministry of persecution is over, the ministry of injustice is over,” he said.
The government did not clarify whether Vidovic had served his time, but said a criminal sentence precluded him from holding public office.
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