MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Toledo seeks release on health grounds, saying he does not want to die in prison

He asked Fujimori, who he noted had received a message from him when her father died, to speed up his pardon request because he does not want to die in prison

Former Peruvian president Alejandro Toledo, 81, has asked President Keiko Fujimori to expedite the presidential pardon he requested on humanitarian grounds, in an interview given on Sunday from Barbadillo prison to the program Sin Rodeos on Panamericana Televisión.

He asked Fujimori, who he noted had received a message from him when her father died, to speed up his pardon request because he does not want to die in prison. He said he has cancer, a serious heart condition and episodes of bleeding, and that if granted authorization he would be admitted to a clinic immediately. These are the former president's own statements: there is no official medical report or independent confirmation of his condition.

Fujimori responded on Monday from Piura that the request will be assessed through technical and medical analysis and with a humanitarian perspective, and that it falls to the Commission on Pardons and Presidential Graces once its members are appointed. She specified that the decision will not respond to political criteria.

Separately, Toledo's lawyers filed a request with the Supreme Court for him to serve his sentence at home while receiving treatment. Labor Minister Juan Sheput, who held that post during Toledo's government, backed that route rather than a pardon, arguing house arrest is what his age warrants.

Toledo, president between 2001 and 2006, is serving two sentences: 20 years and six months in the Interoceánica Sur case, sections II and III, handed down in October 2024, and 13 years and four months in the Ecoteva money laundering case. He was extradited from the United States in 2023 and is the first Peruvian former president sentenced under the Lava Jato investigation.

He also described the death of his mother-in-law, Eva Fernenbug, in Brussels, and the difficulties surrounding her burial: his wife, Eliane Karp, has been in Israel since 2023 and does not return to Peru because of an international arrest warrant for money laundering. Karp publicly requested a pardon for her husband. Responding to Senator Martha Chávez, who rejected that possibility, she said Alberto Fujimori ordered thousands of people killed and tortured and that her husband has stolen nothing. Alberto Fujimori was sentenced in 2009 to 25 years for the Barrios Altos and La Cantuta cases, involving 25 deaths; he was released in December 2023 by a Constitutional Court ruling and died in September 2024. The two convictions against Toledo are final.

On Friday, Ollanta Humala left Barbadillo after fifteen months, following a Constitutional Court ruling annulling the proceedings against him. Toledo, Martín Vizcarra and Pedro Castillo remain held there.