Former President Alejandro Toledo, claimed by the justice of Peru since the end of 2017 for possible corruption crimes, he turned himself in this Friday to the United States judicial system to be extradited to the South American nation.
Upon his arrival at the court accompanied by his wife Eliane Karp, Toledo avoided contact with the media, according to a report by the Efe agency.
Former Peruvian President Alejandro Toledo has turned himself in to the United States authorities, accused of receiving 35 million in bribes from Odebrecht https://t.co/ZoOd0ZExgK
— THE COUNTRY (@el_pais) April 21, 2023
The 77-year-old former president was forced to turn himself in to the authorities this Friday morning at the Robert F. Peckham Building, headquarters of the Northern District of California Court, in the city of San José, after a federal judge denied his request. to stay on US soil.
The Federal Marshals Service was scheduled to place him in the San Mateo County Jail pending completion of the extraditionbut it was unknown when he would be transferred to his country.
Toledo was president of the South American country from 2001 to 2006. He is charged before the Peruvian justice for the alleged commission of the crimes of money laundering, collusion and influence peddling in relation to the scandal of the Brazilian construction company Odebrecht.
According to the records of the well-known Lava Jato Case, that company bribed presidents and senior officials of several Latin American countries with millions of dollars to facilitate the awarding of contracts. Toledo is accused of having received 35 million dollars to favor the interests of Odebrecht.
Efe recalls that in 2019 the founder of the extinct Peru Posible party was arrested in California, where he taught at Stanford University, due to the extradition mandate that weighed on him. However, a year later he was placed under house arrest after considering that his health could be in danger during the COVID-19 pandemic.
In September 2021, the US justice system gave the green light to the extradition of Toledo to Peru, having found sufficient evidence to justify this measure, endorsed in February of this year by the State Department.
Before turning himself in to justice, the former president also told Efe that he demanded that the authorities of his country not allow “his death in prison” and assure him of the possibility of “fighting with argument.”
“My health is very bad (…) Just respect that, they haven’t tried it and they already want to put me in jail,” he said.
In this sense, the president of the Judiciary in Peru, Javier Arévalo, declared to the same medium that the safety and health of Toledo in the country “was guaranteed.”
Arévalo avoided answering if it is feasible that Toledo could receive preventive detention at his home, as his defense has suggested.
Peruvian Interior Minister Vicente Romero told local press that a team would travel to the United States “probably in the next few hours.”
Without giving further details, he stated that at the moment there is no date for Toledo’s arrival in Peru, nor is it known if the former president will travel on a private plane.
Former Peruvian president Alan Garcia was also linked to Odebrecht’s corrupt scheme, but he fatally shot himself in the head when authorities tried to arrest him in 2019.
Efe/OnCuba
