BOLIVIAN law enforcement officials on Wednesday arrested former President Luis Arce as part of a corruption investigation.

The move comes a month after the inauguration of right-wing President Rodrigo Paz.

A senior official in President Paz’s government, Marco Antonio Oviedo, told reporters that Mr Arce had been arrested on charges of breach of duty and financial misconduct related to the alleged embezzlement of public funds during his stint as economy minister under former leader Evo Morales.

Mr Oviendo said the arrest was proof of the government’s commitment to fight corruption, “and we will arrest all those responsible for this massive embezzlement.”

But Mr Arce’s ally and former government minister Maria Nela Prada insisted on the ex-president’s innocence and denounced the corruption scandal as a case of political persecution.

Although the prosecution said that it issued an arrest warrant, she said Mr Arce was not notified of the case before he was bundled into a minivan with tinted windows on Wednesday and brought in for interrogation.

“This is a total abuse of power,” Mr Prada said, banging furiously on the doors of the police headquarters where Mr Arce was being held.

Bolivia’s attorney general Roger Mariaca hit back and promised the case was “not persecution, nor is it a political act.”