MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Former Paraguayan president sentenced to six years in jail

Paraguay's former president Luis Gonzalez Macchi was convicted to six years in prison on for embezzling 16 million U.S. dollars from two collapsed banks, according to reports from Paraguay's capital Asuncion.

The lower court judges in a nationally televised hearing ordered Gonzalez Macchi, who ruled from 1999 to 2003, he be jailed in the country's biggest prison Tacumbu. Prosecutors had asked for a ten year sentence.

The former president denied the charges and said he would appeal: "I was in no way involved in the crime they have accused me of".

The case centered on public funds sent from Paraguay's Central Bank to United States in 2000 via a transfer involving a foreign bank. Prosecutors said the funds originally came from two private commercial banks that collapsed between 1994 and 1998.

Four former Central Bank officials were jailed in 2004 for up to eight years for their roles. Prosecutors said that while transfer was done properly, the funds were sent abroad in violation of a local law.

Gonzalez Macchi said the four bank officials were the "true guilty ones" in the case.

The former president was elected by Congress in 1999 following extensive rioting when popular vice president Luis Argaña was shot to death on leaving his home.