U.S. grants extradition of former president Toledo to Peru, prosecutors say
The U.S. State Department United States has granted the extradition of former Peruvian president Alejandro Toledo (2001-2006), requested by the Andean country’s justice system. for corruption offensesThe Peruvian Public Prosecutor’s Office reported on Tuesday.
The Attorney General’s Office, as the central authority on extraditions, informs that it has learned that the Department of State of the United States of America has granted the extradition of Alejandro Toledo Manríque, for the crimes of collusion and money laundering. pic.twitter.com/aD0QGEEicT
– Public Prosecutor’s Office (@FiscaliaPeru). February 22, 2023
The Public Prosecutor’s Office added that the International Judicial Cooperation and Extraditions Office of the Public Prosecutor’s Office “has been coordinating with national and foreign authorities for the next execution of his extradition”.
In this regard, former anti-corruption prosecutor Ivan Meini has stated on RPP radio station that. Toledo’s surrender to Peru “should be imminent, because there are no more appeals to be filed and the extradition procedure is already over, it has been exhausted”.
“What should happen in the next hours or days is that the governments should agree on how to articulate Toledo’s return to Peru,” he said.
In addition, he has considered that “it is probable” that. Peruvian Public Prosecutor’s Office will request that the former president be sent to preventive prison. while he is being prosecuted and that he serve his arrest in the prison built in a police base in Lima where former governors Alberto Fujimori (1990-2000) and Pedro Castillo (2021-2022) are also imprisoned.
Toledo is accused in his country of receiving tens of millions of dollars. in bribes from Brazilian company Odebrecht in exchange for favoring it in its business dealings in Peru, when he was still president.
Specifically, the former president has been investigated for allegedly committing the crimes of money laundering, collusion and influence peddling, in connection with contracts granted to Odebrecht for the construction of the Interoceanic Road between Brazil and Peru.
The former president was arrested in 2019 in California., where he has resided for the past few years, and spent 8 months in prison as a flight risk, although he was able to leave prison and move to house arrest in March 2020, with the outbreak of the covid-19 pandemic.
Last September, U.S. Justice gave the green light to his extradition to Peru.having found sufficient evidence to justify this measure, although the final decision remained in the hands of U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken.
In the Peruvian chapter of the case Odebrecht, Latin America’s biggest corruption scandal.The former presidents Alan García (2006-2011), Ollanta Humala (2011-2016) and Pedro Pablo Kuczynski (2016-2018), as well as three-time presidential candidate Keiko Fujimori, were also implicated.
