Former President Alejandro Toledo Manrique began serving his sentence immediately and will remain in prison until October 22, 2043. Administering justice on behalf of the nation, the Second Collegiate Criminal Court Toledo was sentenced to 20 years and six months in prison.n for the crimes of aggravated collusion and money laundering, in the process for the South Interoceanic Highway, section 2 and 3.
Alejandro Toledo is the first former president convicted for the Lava Jato scandal in Peru and the second president to receive a conviction for corruption crimes while in office, after the late Alberto Fujimori.
Judges Zaida Pérez, Inés Rojas and Richarth Quispe accepted all the evidence and charges presented by the prosecutor of the Lava Jato Special Team, José Domingo Pérez Gómez during the public trial, which began on October 16, 2016. 175 continuous hearings were held, more than 100 witnesses were heard and more than a thousand documentary evidence was evaluated.
The claim of the ad hoc attorney Silvana Carrión to impose the payment of civil reparation of 1,375 million soles, plus 463 million dollars, which Alejandro Toledo and the other defendants and third-party civil companies responsible must pay.
Toledo listened to the verdict in apparent calm, while taking notes or commenting with his lawyer Roberto Su, sitting to his right. On the left he had the lawyer César Nazazaki, who in this trial defended one of the consortium companies.
Further to his left was prosecutor Pérez Gómez. At the end of the hearing, the prosecutor complained to the judges that Toledo insulted him after hearing the verdict. Lawyer Roberto Su denied that any insult had been made and the court made the videos of the hearing available to the parties to verify the incident.
Guilty of colluding with Odebrecht
Jorge Barata’s statement proved Alejandro Toledo’s crimes
The judges read a summary with the substance of the decision. The full guilty verdict will be read and notified on October 31, in a hearing that will be held at the new judicial headquarters of the Diroes police station, near the Barbadillo prison.
That day, Toledo’s defense and any of the other parties who are not satisfied with the decision can appeal. In this way, the verdict will be reviewed by a National Criminal Appeals Chamber.
Along with Toledo, the former members of the Committee for Proinvestment in Infrastructure and Public Services Projects were also convicted, Alberto Pasco-Font Quevedo and Sergio Bravo Orellanato nine years in prison.
In these two cases, the court postponed compliance with the verdict until the sentence is ratified by the Appeals Chamber.
The court also considered Patrick Barclay Méndez, the third member of the aforementioned Committee, responsible, but since he died, his hereditary assets will be responsible for the payment of civil reparation.
Likewise, he was sentenced to José Fernando Castillo Dibós of ICCGSA to 14 years in prison, but subject to the conclusion of their effective collaboration process next January, which may change their situation. Meanwhile, the process was reserved for Fernando Camet Piccone of JJC Contratistas Generales, until his extradition from Spain occurs.
The collegiate court acquitted the former head of security at the Government Palace, Avraham Dan On, considering that he had no participation in the acts of collusion between Alejandro Toledo, Jorge Barata and Josef Maiman.
The facts that led to the crime
Peru – Brazil road corridor
The judges concluded that the statements of the collaborators, witnesses and the documentary evidence presented by the prosecution allow them to establish that Toledo Manrique colluded with the former superintendent of the construction company Odebrecht in Peru, Jorge Barata.
The objective of the collusive agreement was for the construction company Odebrecht to benefit from the success of the Peru-Brazil interoceanic corridor road project, section 2, 3 and 4.
To reach this conclusion, the judges considered the meeting between Toledo and Barata in the presidential suite of the Copacabana Marriot Hotel in the city of Rio de Janeiro, in November 2004, to be proven.
At that meeting, Toledo asked Barata to pay 35 million dollarsthrough the bank accounts of the companies of his friend, the late Josef Maiman.
Furthermore, it was established that in his capacity as President of the Republic, Toledo exercised direct and indirect influence to expedite the public tender that would allow Odebrecht to be awarded the aforementioned road infrastructure work.
The committee’s involvement in collusion
The public trial took place in 175 continuous hearings
In this regard, a series of supreme decrees were issued to facilitate the Brazilian construction company being awarded the project before the end of its presidential term.
The construction of sections 2 and 3 of the South Interoceanic Highway was awarded on June 23, 2005 to the consortium made up of the companies Odebrecht, Graña y Montero, JJC General Contractors and ICCGSA.
The Comptroller’s Office rejected the signing of the contract because it did not have the required technical studies and given that two of the consortium companies, including Odebrecht, were prevented from contracting with the State. The contract was signed on August 4, 2005.
Regarding the Proinversion Committee, the meetings that Pasco-Font and Bravo held in the Government Palace were taken into account and the fact that, the judges established, they had the power to oppose the signing of the contract and/or question the way in which The entire procedure was expedited, but they did not do it, which makes them accomplices.
Regarding Dan On, the judges indicated that although Barata and Maiman mention him as a kind of errand boy had no power to influence the concession proceduresnor did he interfere in any way. For what it was, acquitted.
Regarding the crime of money laundering, the court considered that the 26.6 million dollars that the Brazilian construction company delivered to Alejandro Toledo, via the accounts of Josef Maiman, have an illicit origin, the transfers became a crime of money laundering.
In this regard, he noted that Jorge Barata declared that at the end of Toledo’s government they had only deposited 4 million dollars of the money offered, so the former president called him to say: “Hey, Barata, pay then.”
A historic ruling against impunity
Prosecutor José Domingo Pérez
“This is a historic sentence against a former president of the Republic. It is a message against impunity in our country. Crimes and corruption are punished and the impact on prosecutors and judges should not continue,” declared prosecutor José Domingo Pérez after the sentence was announced.
He noted that the prosecutor’s office and the Judiciary have been able to maintain their independence despite the demolition campaigns to which they have been subjected.
Pérez highlighted that this is the second sentence in the Odebrecht case and that this week the trial of former president Martín Vizcarra must begin and the case of former president Ollanta Humala is about to end, while the Cócteles case is in progress and the trials are expected to begin the former mayor, Susana Villarán and the former president Pedro Pablo Kuczynski.
