Alejandro Toledo agrees to surrender to US authorities, but asks that his appeal be considered first.

Former President Alejandro Toledo has vowed to turn himself in to US authorities for extradition to Peru if he remains at large while his appeal is pending.

In a filing in federal court for the Northern District of California in San Francisco, lawyers Toledo They responded to a US government request for preventive detention pending extradition of the ex-president, requested by an Andean country court for corruption offences.

His defense argued that in the three years that had passed since the start of the trial against him, he never once tried to flee or leave the territory of the United States.

In fact, they presented a document of the Pre-trial Investigation Agency, which is tasked with making recommendations on the release of the accused, in which this body does not object to Toledo stay away from prison.

In this sense, the defense indicated that the former president would surrender to the US marshals as soon as the Peruvian authorities completed preparations for his extradition and trip to the North American country.

They submitted that the complaint filed Toledo to avoid his extradition to the Ninth U.S. District Court. This can take months, and the former president “could languish” while waiting for the ruling on said appeal in chamber.

They also cited health issues as the former president is 76, “fragile” and recovering from two surgeries, one on his right shoulder and one on his elbow. They also recalled that in the past he was kept in a cell, which they called “cruel”.

“For all these reasons Dr. Toledo respectfully asks this court to allow him to remain at large on bail and from custody, ”the defense said.

Extradition of Alejandro Toledo authorized

On February 21, the State Department authorized the extradition Toledorequested by a Peruvian judge for corruption offences.

Toledo is accused in his country of taking tens of millions of dollars in bribes from a Brazilian company. debrecht in exchange for supporting her business in Peru while he was still president.

In particular, he was investigated for alleged money laundering, conspiracy and influence peddling in connection with contracts awarded to Odebrecht for the construction of an interoceanic route between Brazil and Peru.

The former president was arrested in 2019 in California, where he has lived for the last few years, and spent 8 months in prison for risking flight, although he was able to get out of prison when he was posted on bail due to the pandemic.

In particular, the judge ordered that he be released on bail in March 2020 and immediately placed in his home in San Francisco Bay (a mandatory detention order was in effect at the time) using a GPS tracking system.

In September last year, US justice gave the go-ahead for his extradition to Peru, finding sufficient evidence to justify the measure, although the final decision rested with US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken.

In the Peruvian chapter Odebrecht case, the largest corruption scandal in Latin America, also involved former presidents Alan Garcia (2006-2011), Ollanta Humala (2011-2016) and Pedro Pablo Kuczynski (2016-2018), as well as three-time presidential candidate Keiko Fujimori. . (EFE)