Gustavo Stroessner

A Paraguayan judge has ordered the arrest of air force Col. Gustavo Stroessner, son of deposed President Alfredo Stroessner, for "illegal enrichment" through extortion and influence peddling. The younger Stroessner accompanied his father into Brazilian exile on Feb. 5, two days after Gen. Andres Rodriguez staged a violent coup. Judge Dario Caballero said he acted after receiving a detailed police report accusing Col. Stroessner, 46, of "making a great fortune illegally."

A Paraguayan judge has ordered the arrest of air force Col. Gustavo Stroessner, son of deposed President Alfredo Stroessner, for "illegal enrichment" through extortion and influence peddling. The younger Stroessner accompanied his father into Brazilian exile on Feb. 5, two days after Gen. Andres Rodriguez staged a violent coup. Judge Dario Caballero said he acted after receiving a detailed police report accusing Col. Stroessner, 46, of "making a great fortune illegally."

Paraguay has asked Brazil to extradite Gustavo Stroessner, the son of former dictator Alfredo Stroessner, on fraud charges, a Brazilian Foreign Ministry spokesman said. Spokesman Ruy Nogueira said Monday night the request had been made by the Paraguayan Embassy last Friday. Air Force Col. Gustavo Stroessner went to Brazil with his father, who was toppled in a Feb. 3 coup. The former dictator was given political asylum in Brazil in May.

In the autumn of Paraguay's patriarch, a power struggle has begun. Gen. Alfredo Stroessner remains firmly entrenched after his eighth preordained victory, in a tainted presidential election in February. But at 75, he cannot keep people around him from preparing for the day he is gone. The question of succession has spawned a growing welter of scheming, maneuvering and jostling within his regime, now nearly 34 years old.

Gen. Alfredo Stroessner was driven from power Friday in a fierce military coup led by his second-in-command, who vowed to bring democracy to Paraguay and to respect civil rights after nearly 35 years of dictatorship. Gen. Andres Rodriguez, 64, took the oath of office as president and saluted the public from the balcony of the government palace a few hours after his forces routed Stroessner's loyalist troops in combat that raged across the capital.

Through much of the long night of combat that finally drove him from power, President Alfredo Stroessner apparently believed that his second in command, Gen. Andres Rodriguez, was also under siege by the rebel troops. Only just before he surrendered did Stroessner at last accept that he was undone not by junior officers but by Rodriguez himself, according to one officer's account.