Lino Oviedo

Lino César Oviedo (born September 23, 1943) is a former Paraguayan army general and a politician.

Oviedo born in Paraguayan town of Juan de Mena (Cordillera Department) the September 23, 1943. He was named chief of the Army in 1993, he attempted to overthrow President Juan Carlos Wasmosy in a coup in April 1996. He was imprisoned for this attempt, but later pardoned in a controversial legal maneuver by President Raúl Cubas. After the resignation of President Cubas due to the 1999 assassination of Luis María Argaña, Lino Oviedo fled into exile, first in Argentina and then in Brazil.

On June 28, 2004, he returned to Paraguay and was detained by the police, who took him to the Military Prison of Viñas Cué, located a short distance from Asunción, where, as of November 2006, Oviedo is serving his 10-year sentence.

Pleads for Oviedo's Release

In November of 2006, a Paraguayan man, Tomas Velazquez, held a hunger strike before being publicly crucified in Asunción. He maintained that Oviedo was the target of political persecution and that the military tribunal that convicted him for his alleged participation in a subversive plot was illegal according to the constitution, as it had been conducted in time of peace.