MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

US Judge orders arrest of former Peruvian President Toledo pending extradition

Toledo, 77, was President of Peru between 2001 and 2006

US Federal Judge Thomas Hixson ordered former Peruvian President Alejandro Toledo to surrender to marshalls in the Californian city of San Jose next Friday, April 21, at 9 am local time for his extradition to Lima to face corruption charges in another spinoff of the Odebrecht case in his country. In the meantime, Toledo will be housed in a jail in the Californian county of San Mateo.

Federal prosecutors said Peruvian officials would travel to California to pick up Toledo and take him to his country at a date yet to be determined. Toledo allegedly took US$ 35 million in bribes from the construction company Odebrecht. He is charged with money laundering, collusion, and influence peddling, about contracts granted to Odebrecht for the construction of the Interoceanic Highway between Brazil and Peru.

“This court orders that Toledo be confined in jail, where he will remain until his surrender to the Peruvian authorities has been completed,” the judge's ruling read. Toledo, a resident of San Francisco, should have been arrested for extradition last April 7 but has been delaying the process through several legal appeals.

Toledo, 77, was arrested in 2019 in California and spent 8 months in prison for flight risk, although he was moved to house arrest in March 2020, with the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Last September, the US Justice gave the green light to his extradition to Peru, having found sufficient evidence to justify this measure, which was endorsed last February by the State Department.

The Odebrecht case, the biggest corruption scandal in Latin America, also involved former Peruvian presidents Alan García (1985-1990 and 2006-2011), Ollanta Humala (2011-2016), and Pedro Pablo Kuczynski (2016-2018), as well as three-time presidential candidate Keiko Fujimori, daughter and political heir of former president Alberto Fujimori (1990-2000).