Asuncion---A Paraguayan judge placed the ex-president of the South American Football Confederation, Nicolas Leoz, under house arrest Monday after he was charged in a sweeping US probe of corruption at FIFA.
Judge Humberto Otazu visited the ailing former football executive in the hospital where he has been under treatment since learning of the case against him last week.
"I informed him of his constitutional rights and that he could seek a simplified extradition process, to which he answered no. He said he does not know what crimes he is accused of," the judge told a press conference.
He said he had ordered house arrest for Leoz, 86, because of his age.
Leoz was due to be released later Monday after five days in the private hospital in Asuncion, said the judge.
He will then be taken under police escort to his home in the Paraguayan capital's upscale Villa Morra neighborhood.
Leoz led CONMEBOL, the South American federation, from 1986 to 2013, and is also a former member of FIFA's executive committee.
He is among the 14 football officials and marketing executives indicted by US authorities for racketeering, wire fraud and money laundering conspiracies across 24 years of corrupt schemes involving more than $150 million in bribes at world football's governing body.
AFP
