LIMA/WASHINGTON—Former Peruvian President Alejandro Toledo surrendered to U.S. authorities on Friday, a U.S. Marshals Service official instructed Reuters, a day after his last-ditch bid to dam his extradition to Peru over corruption costs was denied.
The previous chief’s lawyer expressed dismay on the flip of occasions afterward Friday.
Toledo, who has taught courses at Stanford College, 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 costs he acquired some $35 million from Brazilian building firm Odebrecht in alternate 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 U.S. federal choose denied his newest bid to dam his extradition.
His lawyer, David Bowker, described his shopper as “profoundly saddened and dissatisfied” by the choose’s choice, asserting Toledo is a sufferer of “political prosecution.”
Bowker stated Peru’s justice system is “flawed” and the case towards Toledo “rests largely on the unreliable testimony of two confessed criminals.”
He added the previous president “won’t ever have a good alternative to … show his innocence.”
Toledo shall 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 in the US in 2019 after an extradition request by Peru’s authorities. He was launched on bail the next yr and was just lately residing in California.
His give up possible alerts progress in Peru’s anti-corruption battle and will result in additional revelations, based on David Waisman, Toledo’s former vice chairman.
“I’m certain he’s going to rat out the folks concerned in an effort to get his jail time period shortened,” Waisman instructed Reuters.
Authorities say Toledo is more likely to be held in a jail outdoors 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 below investigation for rebel costs after making an attempt to dissolve Congress in December.
Prosecutors have requested for 18 months of pre-trial detention for Toledo, an economist who gained the presidency after a graft scandal involving Fujimori.
Practically all of Peru’s presidents over the previous three a long time have been accused of or investigated for corruption.
“It is a reflection of the work within the battle towards corruption within the nation, with all the issues it has,” stated legal lawyer Carlos Caro.
Odebrecht acknowledged in a 2017 deal in the US 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 below investigation for the Odebrecht case, was below home arrest on accusations of bribery however has since been launched below restrictions. Garcia took his personal life in 2019.
By Marco Aquino and Brendan O’Brien
