Ex-President Finishes Serving Sentence

Former Venezuelan President Carlos Andres Perez, impeached in 1993 and later convicted of corruption, completed his sentence of more than two years under house arrest and immediately began laying the groundwork for a political comeback. Perez, 73, whose four-year presidency was marked by two coup attempts and massive riots, maintained that the charge that he misappropriated $17 million in state funds was politically motivated. He hopes to return to the Senate in 1998, but the state is still investigating his finances, and the party he helped found 55 years ago, Democratic Action, has kicked him out.