MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Key witness in corruption case against former Peruvian president dies

Maiman had signed an effective collaboration agreement with Peru's Offiuce of the Prosecutor

While former Peruvian President Alejandro Toledo is jailed in California pending his extradition to stand trial for his alleged involvement in a corruption scandal, one of the prosecution's main witnesses died this weekend in Israel.

Businessman Josef Maiman, one of the sources of evidence in the money laundering charges against Toledo, was 75 years old. He had lived in his youth in Peru and had a close friendship with Toledo.

In 2019 he had signed an effective collaboration agreement with the Peruvian Prosecutor's Office to testify about how the ex-president used the accounts of his companies to hide sizeable bribes.

Maiman declared to the Prosecutor's Office that he used his companies to divert the illicit payments that the Brazilian construction company Odebrecht made to Toledo so that his Government awarded him the construction of two sections of the South Interoceanic highway.

Earlier this month, Judicial authorities of the United States had approved Toledo's extradition to Peru to be prosecuted for allegedly receiving up to US $ 35 million from Odebrecht during his term in office between 2001 and 2006.

The 75-year-old Toledo was arrested in 2019 in California, where he has resided for the past few years. He spent 8 months in jail for posing a flight risk, but he was later allowed to remain under house arrest in March 2020 with the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Toledo is one of the four former presidents of Peru involved in the Odebrecht scandal, which has already sent part of Brazil's political and business elite to jail.

Alan García (1985-1990, 2006-2011) committed suicide in 2019, at the age of 69, when he was going to be detained by the police in Lima, about this case. Ollanta Humala (2011-2016) and Pedro Pablo Kuczynski (2016-2018) are also under judicial scrutiny.