LIMA/WASHINGTON – Former Peruvian President Alejandro Toledo surrendered to US authorities on Friday, a US Marshals Service official informed Reuters, a day after his last-ditch bid to dam his extradition to Peru over corruption expenses was denied.
The former chief’s lawyer expressed dismay on the flip of occasions in a while Friday.
Toledo, who has taught lessons at Stanford University, is about to make historical past because the South American nation’s third former president presently behind bars as he awaits prosecution.
Toledo, president from 2001 to 2006, is needed in Peru over expenses he obtained some $35 million from Brazilian building firm Odebrecht in change for assist in acquiring public works contracts. Prosecutors are searching for a 20-year jail sentence.
Toledo, 77, has denied soliciting or receiving bribes. On Thursday, a US federal decide denied his newest bid to dam his extradition.
His lawyer, David Bowker, described his shopper as “profoundly saddened and disappointed” by the decide’s choice, asserting Toledo is a sufferer of “political prosecution.”
Bowker stated Peru’s justice system is “flawed” and the case in opposition to Toledo “rests largely on the unreliable testimony of two confessed criminals.”
He added the previous president “will never have a fair opportunity to … prove his innocence.”
Toledo will probably be moved to Peru’s capital Lima in two or three days, Silvana Carrion, the native prosecutor dealing with the case, stated on native broadcaster Canal N.
Toledo was arrested within the United States in 2019 after an extradition request by Peru’s authorities. He was launched on bail the next yr and was just lately dwelling in California.
His give up probably alerts progress in Peru’s anti-corruption battle and will result in additional revelations, in line with David Waisman, Toledo’s former vp.
“I’m sure he’s going to rat out the people involved in an effort to get his prison term shortened,” Waisman informed Reuters.
Authorities say Toledo is prone to be held in a jail exterior Lima, the place two different former presidents, right-wing Alberto Fujimori and leftist Pedro Castillo, are presently held.
Fujimori, who ruled between 1990 and 2000, is serving a 25-year sentence for human rights abuses. Castillo is being held in pre-trial detention whereas underneath investigation for insurrection expenses after attempting to dissolve Congress in December.
Prosecutors have requested for 18 months of pre-trial detention for Toledo, an economist who received the presidency after a graft scandal involving Fujimori.
Nearly all of Peru’s presidents over the previous three a long time have been accused of or investigated for corruption.
“This is a reflection of the work in the fight against corruption in the country, with all the problems it has,” stated prison lawyer Carlos Caro.
Odebrecht acknowledged in a 2017 deal within the U.S. that it paid some $29 million to win concessions in Peru from 2005-2014 throughout the governments of Toledo, Alan Garcia and Ollanta Humala.
Former President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski, additionally underneath investigation for the Odebrecht case, was underneath home arrest on accusations of bribery however has since been launched underneath restrictions. Garcia took his personal life in 2019. —Reuters
Source: www.gmanetwork.com
