MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Toledo taken to Barbadillo prison in Lima

Prosecutors are requesting Toledo, 77, be sentenced to 20 years and six months in prison

Alejandro Toledo is already sharing the Barbadillo Prison facilities with fellow former Peruvian Presidents Alberto Fujimori and Pedro Castillo after his extradition from the United States was completed Sunday. He is to stand trial for allegedly receiving bribes worth US$ 35 million from the Brazilian construction company Odebrecht.

Toledo will serve 18 months of pre-trial detention. He was placed under arrest after landing at Lima's Jorge Chávez international airport and ferried in handcuffs by helicopter to the Police Special Operations Directorate (Diroes) -Barbadillo's official name- where he will be housed pending a final decision in this regard from Peru's Prison Bureau (INPE).

The former head of state had exhausted all appeals within the US Judiciary to avoid extradition to account for the money he reportedly took for the awarding of the Interoceanic highway works. Prosecutors are requesting Toledo, 77, be sentenced to 20 years and six months in prison.

Peru's former strongman, who ruled the South American country from 2001 to 2006, surrendered at a US judge's request Friday morning in federal court in San Jose, California, for the final phase of the extradition process. Toledo has repeatedly denied the charges against him. However, he was arrested in 2019 in the United States, where he was residing after working at Stanford University. In 2020 he was granted house arrest with an electronic anklet due to the Covid-19 pandemic.