2023-04-23 19:28:09
Published in:
After trying in vain to delay his extradition to Peru, former President Alejandro Toledo arrived in Lima on the morning of Sunday, April 23. Accused of having received millions of dollars in bribes from the Brazilian company Odebrecht, he must now serve 18 months in preventive detention until the start of the trial. He faces up to 20 years in prison.
With RFI regional correspondent Éric Samson
Alejandro Toledo’s return trip was followed live by the public and the media: his departure from San Francisco in a wheelchair, his hands under a blanket apparently to hide his handcuffs, the four-hour layover in Los Angeles and the escorted flight to Lima airport, where the former head of state was transferred to police aviation facilities.
On Friday (21), Alejandro Toledo appeared in a San José court to be arrested for extradition. The 77-year-old former president has exhausted all possible remedies against that decision. Since 2017, Peruvian justice has been on his trail. Alejandro Toledo, arrested in 2019 in the United States where he resided, finally landed in Peru. When he arrived in Lima, this time he was on his feet, but again with his hands hidden.
The man who presided over Peru from 2001 to 2006 is accused of receiving US$ 35 million in bribes from the Brazilian construction group Odebrecht, at the center of a major scandal in South America, in exchange for winning public contracts, namely the construction of the Southern Ocean Route, between Peru and Brazil. He is also accused of money laundering by using his mother-in-law as a figurehead.
Arrested with former presidents Fujimori and Castillo
After undergoing a medical examination, Alejandro Toledo was handed over to the prosecution and now must serve 18 months in preventive detention in the Barbadillo prison, in the district of Ate, east of Lima. Two former presidents are also imprisoned in the establishment: Alberto Fujimori (from 1990 to 2000) and Pedro Castillo (from 2021 to 2022). Toledo faces up to 20 years in prison.
Claiming to suffer from cancer, the former head of state asked to benefit from a house arrest measure, which has not yet been appreciated by the courts. He also wants to recover the US$ 1 million bail paid in 2020 to the US judicial authorities as bail.
#Peruvian #president #Alejandro #Toledo #extradited