Lima (EFE).- Former Peruvian President Alejandro Toledo (2001-2006) did not appear on Monday at a judicial hearing on “mixed request control” for the crime of money laundering, the first to be held after his extradition this Sunday from United States.
Toledo’s decision was informed, virtually, by the security chief of the Barbadillo Lima prison, William Antezana, where the former ruler has been held since Sunday night.
Antezana informed the judge in the case, Richard Carhuancho, that Toledo “expressed verbally that he is not going to appear today at the proceeding and that he has already coordinated with his lawyer.”
Given this, the judge recalled that “there is no obligation” for Toledo to participate in the hearing and consulted his defense attorney, Roberto Su, who confirmed that the former president had informed him of his decision.
Hours before, Su had already declared that Toledo “is not obliged” to participate in the judicial control hearing of the accusation that, according to what he said, will take place over three days.
“They are hearings where he does not intervene, there is no obligation for the defendant to be present in the debates. Practically his extradition has been carried out because there is an international order, because the United States has accepted, but it is not that tomorrow he will appear in court or go to a bench of defendants, ”he remarked.
Toledo, confined in the same prison as Fujimori and Castillo
Toledo has been held since Sunday night in the Barbadillo prison, where former presidents Alberto Fujimori (1990-2000) and Pedro Castillo (2021-2022) are also in custody, to serve a preventive prison of 18 months as a result of the process opened in against him for alleged money laundering.
The National Penitentiary Institute (INPE) was in charge of his transfer by helicopter from a police station in the Rímac district and reported that Toledo will not receive visits until the prison technical council establishes the hours and security measures for the inmate.
The Judiciary previously reported that Toledo, 77, attended an identity control hearing on Sunday, and then made himself available to INPE to go to a prison.
Since he arrived in Peru on a commercial flight from Los Angeles, the former president was first taken to the Police Aviation Directorate (DIPA), in Callao, where he underwent a legal medicine exam, and then by helicopter to the barracks. Rimac Police.
Later they transferred him to the National Superior Court to be present at an identity control hearing before the Court of Duty, in charge of magistrate Margarita Salcedo.
Toledo is accused by the Prosecutor’s Office of having received a bribe of 35 million dollars from the Brazilian company Odebrecht to award him the construction of various sections of the South Interoceanic highway during his government.