The United States Attorney’s Office asked a California judge on February 22 to revoke the bail of former Peruvian President Alejandro Toledo to carry out his extradition to Peru decided this week by Washington.
“Given that Toledo has failed in his attempt to suspend the extradition request, and his surrender was authorized, Toledo must be detained so that the government can turn him over to the Peruvian authorities,” says a request filed this Wednesday by the United States Attorney’s Office. . The document was delivered to the Northern District Court of California, which must respond in a hearing on March 9.
The Lava Jato case
Alejandro Toledo, 76, is required by the Peruvian justice system for accusations of corruption and money laundering. The former president (2001-2006) was arrested in 2019 in California, where he resided. He was later placed on house arrest in 2020, after posting bail, and has lived in his San Francisco home ever since, guarded by an electronic shackle.
“In 2019, Mr. Toledo was arrested and arrested and sent to a prison in the United States. That condition changed, the effective arrest warrant was revoked and he began to have a home detention condition. The US government requested that Mr. Toledo’s bail be revoked so that they can arrest him and make him available to the US Marshals, which is the police service in the United States and the justice body that coordinates with the Peruvian central authority in charge of of the Peruvian Prosecutor’s Office, so that the transfer of Mr. Toledo finally takes place. In other words, in the next few days we should already have the news of Mr. Toledo’s transfer to our country,” Silvana Carrión, ad hoc attorney for the Lava Jato case in Peru, details for RFI.
Listen to the full interview with Silvana Carrión, ad hoc prosecutor for the Lava Jato case in Peru
Peruvian prosecutors are asking for a sentence of 20 years and six months in prison for the former president, accused of having received millions of dollars from the Brazilian construction company Odebrecht in exchange for obtaining tenders for public works. The former president denies the accusations and tried several legal resources to block the extradition request that Peru has been seeking since 2018.
“Solid evidence”
However, the Peruvian Prosecutor’s Office claims to have sufficient elements to convict Toledo. The testimonies of his former collaborator Josef Maiman, and of Jorge Barata, a former representative of Odebrecht in Peru, were key, with both affirming that Toledo received bribes from the Brazilian construction giant.
“The Peruvian Prosecutor’s Office has an accusation against Mr. Alejandro Toledo for the crimes of aggravated collusion, also for the crime of money laundering. There is solid evidence in the case, there are statements by collaborators of the Odebrecht company, as well as by Mr. Toledo’s partner, Mr. Josef Maiman, who was a Peruvian Israeli citizen who has already passed away, but who was a collaborator of the Peruvian justice system and gave the information and documents proving that all the bribery payments that Mr. Toledo received from the Odebrecht company were channeled through his accounts, on the occasion of this collusive agreement that took place regarding the Interoceánica project. We estimate that in the coming months the judiciary will begin the oral trial with Mr. Toledo already in our country”, underlines Silvana Carrión.
In addition to Toledo, four former Peruvian presidents face legal proceedings for corruption: Ollanta Humala (2011-2016), Pedro Pablo Kuczynski (2016-2018), Martín Vizcarra (2018-2020) and Pedro Castillo (2021-2022). Former President Alberto Fujimori (1990-2000) was also convicted of corruption, and Alan García (2006-2011) committed suicide in 2019 when the police were about to arrest him on suspicion of being linked to the Odebrecht scandal.
Odebrecht recognized the payment of bribes in Brazil and other countries in the region in the framework of the Lava Jato scandal, which sent dozens of politicians and businessmen behind bars.
And with AFP
