The former president’s legal team announces that it will appeal the sentence
The Peruvian judiciary announced on Monday that former Peruvian President Alejandro Toledo (2001-2006) has been sentenced to 20 years and six months in prison after finding him guilty of committing the crimes of collusion and money laundering in the framework of the ‘Interoceánica Sur’ case, sections II and III, which links Peru with Brazil.
“He colluded with interested parties such as Odebrecht so that, through a bribe of 35 million dollars, the Brazilian company was awarded the tender for the construction of sections 2 and 3 of the Interoceanic Highway, causing harm to the State,” the verdict states, according to the Judiciary through its profile on the social network X.
In an advance of the ruling from the courtroom of the Barbadillo prison, where he has been held since his extradition from the United States, Judge Inés Roja Contreras, of the Second National Collegiate Criminal Court, has decided to impose nine years in prison for the crime of collusion and eleven years and six months for the crime of money laundering, in addition to civil compensation of 1,375 million Peruvian soles (338 million euros) and 463 million dollars (427 million euros), and a disqualification from public office for three years.
As he explained, the Israeli businessman Josef Maiman was in charge of channeling the money that the Brazilian company Odebrecht was going to give to Toledo for his government’s projects. The then president met with officials at the Government Palace to speed up the tender in favor of said company.
In the process, they have received almost 120 witnesses and 175 hearings have been verified, checking more than a thousand documentary evidence. During his last hearing of the trial, Toledo, 78 years old, asked the judges to let him “cure or die” at home after reiterating his innocence in the final argument and after mentioning that he suffers from cancer and heart problems.
Roja has pointed out that “as the first administrative authority of the entire State, (he should) protect and ensure the correct functioning of the administration and the patrimonial interests of the public administration, in the field of public contracting.” “He had the duty to act with absolute neutrality, political, economic or any other kind of impartiality in the performance of his duties, demonstrating independence from his links with people, political parties or institutions,” reported the radio station RPP.
“As a series or a rosary of irregularities have been demonstrated, an unusual interference, an acceleration of the process and the direct and indirect intervention of Toledo in the process, Toledo has carried out the typical conduct of the breach of duty, defrauding the State,” it said.
Toledo’s lawyer, Roberto Su, has announced that he will appeal the sentence announced this Monday (the full reading will be on October 31) alleging that there have been “time errors” in the ruling of the Judiciary. “We are going to appeal and we hope that in a second instance it can be reviewed and analyzed,” he said in statements to the press collected by the radio station Exitosa Noticias.
“For us, establishing criminal liability and civil compensation, in the terms that have been raised, is really laughable. However, we are confident. In the trial it has not been proven that Alejandro Toledo has interceded,” referring to the fact that the conviction is based on the testimony of several witnesses. Thus, he has hoped that “a higher court with greater criteria can review this case and can correct and acquit.”
When asked about the state of the former head of State, Su has indicated that “he was prepared for decisions like these” and that “he is a strong man” who “knew that this could come.” However, he has taken the opportunity to point out that “the judge did not master the text,” implying that “she did not understand the sentence” and “there are people who have collaborated with them.”
With this sentence, Toledo becomes the first former president of Peru to be sentenced for the Lava Jato operation, which broke out in Brazil and implicated the construction company Odebrecht in an international network with which it had established institutional corruption in more than a dozen Latin American countries.
