La Paz: Former Bolivian military dictator Luis Garcia Meza, who was serving a 30-year prison sentence, has died. He was 88. Garcia Meza was admitted to a military hospital in La Paz after suffering a heart attack and could not be resuscitated. A medical report said he died “from possible respiratory failure.”
The Cossmil military hospital told The Associated Press that the death occurred at 3 a.m. Sunday. The former army general was imprisoned for murders carried out during his 13 months in office from 1980-1981, but he completed much of his sentence at the hospital where he died.
The military leader led a bloody coup in July 1980 that deposed President Lidia Gueiler as Bolivia was trying to return to democracy after 16 years of dictatorship.
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