Select the most appropriate option that can substitute the highlighted segment in the given sentence.
The thief who had been accused for the bank theft was later acquitted because of lack of evidence.

Correct option is C

The correct substitution of the highlighted words is (c) "accused of the bank theft was." The correct option is (c) "accused of the bank theft was." This corrects the prepositional error in the original sentence.
The phrase "accused for" is incorrect when referring to the reason someone is blamed or charged; the correct preposition to use with "accused" in this context is "of."
Therefore, the phrase should be "The thief who had been accused of the bank theft was later acquitted because of lack of evidence."
Grammatical rule used: The verb "accuse" is correctly paired with the preposition "of" when indicating the crime or action for which someone is charged. Example: She was accused of plagiarism.