(San José) Former Peruvian President Alejandro Toledo went to the San José courthouse on Friday morning in California to be formally imprisoned by American justice before his extradition to Peru, where he is accused of corruption, confirmed local authorities.
Mr. Toledo, 77, head of state between 2001 and 2006, arrived at 9:15 a.m. local time, a court official told AFP.
Peruvian justice claims him because he is suspected of having received tens of millions of dollars from the Brazilian construction group Odebrecht, at the heart of a vast scandal in South America, in exchange for obtaining public contracts.
On Wednesday, a San Francisco judge ordered his incarceration, after the rejection the day before by an appeals court of yet another appeal to prevent his extradition. It was authorized by Washington in February, and has been long awaited by Peruvian justice: Lima has been demanding it since 2018.
He was arrested in 2019 in the United States, where he resided after working at Stanford University. Initially incarcerated, he was then placed under house arrest at his home in San Francisco, with the obligation to wear an electronic bracelet.
Prosecuted for corruption and money laundering in Peru, Mr. Toledo maintains his innocence. One of his former collaborators as well as a former representative of the construction giant Odebrecht claim that he received bribes of money from the group.
Odebrecht has admitted to paying bribes in Brazil and other Latin American countries in connection with the Lava Jato scandal, for which dozens of Latin American politicians and businessmen are in prison .
Mr. Toledo is on a list of former Peruvian heads of state prosecuted or convicted of corruption in various cases: Alberto Fujimori (1990-2000), Ollanta Humala (2011-2016), Pedro Pablo Kuczynski (2016-2018 ), Martin Vizcarra (2018-2020) and Pedro Castillo (2021-2022).
