Peru: Former Toledo President asks US to stop his extradition
- April 20, 2023
- 0
Former Peruvian President Alejandro Toledo on Thursday asked a US federal judge to cancel his arrest warrant in order to extradite him to Peru, where he is accused
Former Peruvian President Alejandro Toledo on Thursday asked a US federal judge to cancel his arrest warrant in order to extradite him to Peru, where he is accused of corruption in the Odebrecht case.
The man, who was president of the Andean country between 2001 and 2006, filed an urgent motion with Judge Beryl Howell in the District Court of Colombia to “suspend detention and extradition.”
With the help of this resource, Toledo is trying to cancel the arrest warrant issued yesterday, Wednesday, by California Judge Thomas Hickson in order to send it to Peru.
The former president is forced to report to authorities tomorrow morning at the Robert F. Peckham Building, headquarters of the Northern District Court of California, in San Jose, California.
Toledo, a San Francisco resident, was due to be arrested for extradition on April 7, but dragged the process through various legal resources.
Finally, the Ninth Court of Appeals denied the president’s request for a new hearing to review his delivery to Peru, prompting US Attorney’s to ask a judge on Wednesday to reactivate the arrest warrant.
Toledo, 77, was arrested in 2019 in California and spent 8 months in jail for risking flight, although he was placed under house arrest in March 2020 due to the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic.
In September last year, US justice gave the go-ahead for his extradition to Peru, finding sufficient evidence to justify the measure, which was approved by the State Department in February of this year.
In his home country, Toledo is accused of having received about $34 million from the Brazilian construction company Odebrecht through a network of companies in tax havens through which he purchased real estate in Peru for a million dollars.
The Odebrecht case, the biggest corruption scandal in Latin America, also affected former Peruvian presidents Alan Garcia (1985-1990 and 2006-2011), Ollanta Humala (2011-2016) and Pedro Pablo Kuczynski (2016-2018), as well as a three-time presidential candidate Keiko Fujimori, daughter and political heiress of former President Alberto Fujimori (1990-2000). EFE
Source: Aristegui Noticias
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