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Peru Ex-President Gets 20 Years 10/22 06:11
LIMA, Peru (AP) -- Peru's former President Alejandro Toledo on Monday was
sentenced to 20 years and six months in prison in a case involving Brazilian
construction giant Odebrecht, which became synonymous with corruption across
Latin America, where it paid millions of dollars in bribes to government
officials and others.
Authorities accused Toledo of accepting $35 million in bribes from Odebrecht
in exchange for allowing the construction of a highway in the South American
country. The National Superior Court of Specialized Criminal Justice in the
capital, Lima, imposed the sentence after years of legal wrangling, including a
dispute over whether Toledo, who governed Peru from 2001 to 2006, could be
extradited from the United States.
Judge Ins Rojas said Toledo's victims were Peruvians who "trusted" him as
their president. Rojas explained that in that role, Toledo was "in charge of
managing public finances" and responsible for "protecting and ensuring the
correct" use of resources. Instead, she said, he "defrauded the state."
She added that Toledo "had the duty to act with absolute neutrality, protect
and preserve the assets of the state, avoiding their abuse or exploitation,"
but he did not do so.
Odebrecht, which built some of Latin America's most crucial infrastructure
projects, admitted to U.S. authorities in 2016 to having bought government
contracts throughout the region with generous bribes. The investigation by the
U.S. Department of Justice spun probes in several countries, including Mexico,
Guatemala and Ecuador.
In Peru, authorities accused Toledo and three other former presidents of
receiving payments from the construction giant. They alleged Toledo received
$35 million from Odebrecht in exchange for the contract to build 650 kilometers
(403 miles) of a highway linking Brazil with southern Peru. That portion of the
highway was initially estimated to cost $507 million, but Peru ended up paying
$1.25 billion.
Rojas at one point read parts of the testimony from Jorge Barata, a former
Odebrecht executive in Peru, who told prosecutors that the former president
called him up to three times after leaving office to demand that he be paid.
Toledo lowered his gaze and looked at his hands as Rojas read the
expletive-laden remarks that Barata recounted to prosecutors.
Toledo has denied the accusations against him. His attorney, Roberto Siu,
told reporters after the hearing that they will appeal the sentence.
The former president on Monday frequently smirked, and at times laughed,
particularly when the judge mentioned multimillion-dollar sums central to the
case as well as when she struggled to read transcripts and other evidence in
the case. Throughout the hearing, he also leaned to his right to speak with his
attorney.
In contrast, last week, he asked the court with a broken voice and his hands
together, as if he were praying, to let him return home citing his age, cancer
and heart problems.
Toledo, 78, was first arrested in 2019 at his home in California, where he
had been living since 2016, when he returned to Stanford University, his alma
mater, as a visiting scholar to study education in Latin America. He was
initially held in solitary confinement at a county jail east of San Francisco
but was released to house arrest in 2020 because of the COVID-19 pandemic and
his deteriorating mental health.
He was extradited to Peru in 2022 after a court of appeals denied a
challenge to his extradition and he surrendered to authorities. He has since
remained under preventive detention.
Rojas said Toledo will get credit for time served starting in April 2023. He
will serve the remainder of his sentence at a prison on the outskirts of Lima
that was built specifically to house former Peruvian presidents.
Prosecutor Jos Domingo Prez after the hearing described the sentence as
"historic" and said it shows Peruvians that "crimes and corruption are
punished."
Odebrecht rebranded as Novonor in 2020.
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