US grants extradition of Peru’s former President Alejandro Toledo

Toledo, who served as Peru’s president from 2001 to 2006, is accused of taking hundreds of thousands of {dollars} in bribes from a Brazilian development firm.

The US has granted the extradition of Peruvian former President Alejandro Toledo over corruption allegations, Peru’s legal professional basic workplace has stated, including that the nation’s justice system has been coordinating with nationwide and overseas authorities for the execution of the order.

“We’ve got been knowledgeable that the US State Division granted the extradition of Alejandro Toledo Manríque for the crimes of collusion and cash laundering,” read a tweet from the general public prosecutor revealed on Wednesday.

Peru requested the extradition of Toledo – who served because the nation’s president from 2001 to 2006 – in 2018 on fees he took hundreds of thousands of {dollars} in bribes from Odebrecht, a Brazilian development firm concerned in an intensive corruption case throughout South America.

Toledo was detained by US authorities in 2019, however launched to accommodate arrest in 2020.

“We don’t have a set deadline [for the extradition] in the intervening time, however it’s unlikely to take months,” Alfredo Rebaza, the pinnacle of the legal professional basic’s extradition workplace, stated on the Canal N tv station, including that logistics would now start with Interpol and US authorities.

A US choose dominated in September 2021 that the fees in opposition to Toledo met the requirements specified by the extradition treaty between the US and Peru. Nonetheless, the State Division needed to give its last say earlier than US authorities might proceed.

Toledo, who as of August 2022 lived in California, has denied soliciting or receiving bribes and has not been criminally charged within the US.

Toledo has lived within the US because the finish of his presidency, with a short break in 2011 when he ran for a second time period, however was defeated within the first spherical.

A Peruvian prosecutor has requested 20 years and 6 months in jail for Toledo for a case linked to the development of two sections of a freeway connecting southern Peru with Brazil.

Toledo has admitted that Odebrecht paid no less than $34m and that he acquired a part of that cash, however claims he’s harmless of the fees and says {that a} late businessman, Josef Maiman, was in command of the enterprise dealings, in accordance with Peruvian media.

As of Wednesday morning, the US State Division had but to launch a press release over the authorisation of Toledo’s extradition.

The previous president is one in an extended checklist of former Peruvian presidents both dealing with authorized proceedings or already convicted on corruption fees.

Former President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski can be below investigation for alleged cash laundering. One other former president dealing with arrest, Alan Garcia, died by suicide in 2019.