ASUNCION (AFP) – A lawmaker in Paraguay’s ruling party was killed at his home on Monday in a shootout with drug enforcement agents, police said.
Officers came under fire at Eulalio Gomes’ home in the country’s northeast and shot back, “mortally wounding the parliamentarian,” according to police chief Carlos Benitez.
Gomes, 67, was a member of the conservative Colorado party. The operation, police said, had targeted his son Alexandre under a warrant for the arrest of “persons suspected of being part of a scheme of money laundering from drug trafficking and criminal association”.
The younger Gomes later turned himself in.
Paraguay is plagued by corruption and drug-related crime.
It has a score of 28 out of 100 on Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index, with zero being the lowest.
