preparing to arrest him over matters relating to the Odebrecht scandal. He was transferred to a hospital in serious condition, where he remained for more than three hours in an operating room, during which he suffered three cardiorespiratory arrests before his death. García is considered one of the most controversial yet talented politicians of Peru's contemporary history. He was known as an immensely charismatic orator. Early life Born in the Maison de Santé Clinic of the Barranco District into a middle-class family, García met his father for the first time when he was five due to his father's imprisonment for being a member of the Peruvian Aprista Party. His mother founded the party's base in the Camaná Province of the Arequipa Region. From a very young age, he accompanied his father to party meetings and became acquainted with future leaders of the American Popular Revolutionary Alliance (APRA), such as Luis Alva Castro and Mercedes Cabanillas. At 14, he was already an immensely talented orator when he first gave a speech in honour of party founder Víctor Raúl Haya de la Torre, whom he admired and followed until his death. García studied law, first at the Pontifical Catholic University of Peru and later earning a bachelor's degree from the National University of San Marcos in 1971. A year later, he left Peru for Spain, where he pursued a doctoral degree in constitutional law under the guidance of Manuel Fraga. For years García claimed to have earned the degree; in 2014, however, documents from the university proved he never finished the work for it. In 1974, he moved to France with other members of the APRA to study at the Sorbonne Nouvelle University Paris 3 and the Institut des Hautes Etudes de l´Amérique latine (IHEAL). After earning a diploma in sociology from IHEAL, he was called by Víctor Raúl Haya de la Torre to come back to Peru in order to run for the Constituent Assembly election in 1978. García was elected a Member of the Assembly, where he impressed his colleagues with his oratory and skillful rhetoric. As APRA's Secretary of Organization, he was assigned to conduct the party's public affairs in the wake of Haya de la Torre's death in 1979. From his first marriage, García had one daughter, Carla, who is also active in Peruvian politics. With his second wife Pilar Nores, from whom he separated in 2010, García