(From San Francisco)
Engaged in the revelation of more than a dozen documents related to his multiple investigations, the defense of Alejandro Toledo He received a “denied” several times. “No” to the complete extradition package. “No” to Maryland research. “No” to Peru’s communications with the United States Embassy, or with other governments to which it requested judicial assistance.
“How can you help us determine probable cause?” Judge Thomas S. Hixson asked yesterday morning. The courtroom was another in the federal court of the Northern District of California; The characters, the same.
As on other occasions, Graham Archer, the young lawyer of Toledo, was run over a bit when he spoke. “I find it incredible that, in cases like this, the testimony of a witness is taken[[Josef Maiman]that he had already exonerated Toledo in front of the Peruvian Congress, under oath, only to retract when he was offered effective collaboration, ”he claimed. He said that Maiman and the former representative of Odebrecht Jorge Barata they had changed their versions to accommodate the records that appeared.
According to Archer, the testimonies could have been obtained under coercion. Therefore, transcripts of the interrogations of Peruvian prosecutors with Maiman and Barata are essential to determine the probable cause. Similarly with the effective collaboration agreements of both, in addition to those of Ricardo Boleira, Renato Ribeiro, Antonio Carlos Nostre and the construction company Norberto Odebrecht.
Rebecca Haciski spoke for the US prosecution this time. “If Toledo wants the documents he is looking for, he should return to Peru, where he will find them,” he said. “The US Government He does not have them, nor does he have the authority to make such requests to another sovereign nation. ”
True, Hixson said. This time, the exit will be negotiated.
“I can’t order anything from the Peruvian Government, but I can ask the United States, which is in this room,” Hixson observed. “The court orders you to present the documents [de interrogatorios y acuerdos de colaboración] that they are in their possession, or that they declare under penalty of perjury that, after conducting a reasonable and diligent investigation, they have determined that they do not have any, within the next 30 days. ”
–Fishing days–
Archer’s request – for denied papers and those they may access – is part of the pedido discovery ’request he submitted last December. In US procedural law, ‘discovery’ is a procedure by which the parties can demand from each other a quantity of evidence, documents and declarations. A kind of rehearsal of what would be the stage of presenting evidence in a trial.
The difference, as the prosecutors and Judge Hixson pointed out, is that what happens in extradition “is not a trial”, and Alejandro Toledo not a defendant in the US but “a fugitive.” In a January document this year, prosecutor Elise LaPunzina had accused Archer of “throwing the hook” to see what he found with a request for ‘discovery’ that covered everything.
Hixson recognized him this way, and only admitted one of the defense’s requests completely: the sworn statement – drafted – of the search warrant for his Menlo Park house, which occurred last July, the same day of his arrest. The search was connected with a federal investigation separate from extradition, although it served to find evidence that the prosecution now uses in this process.
As in the previous case, the United States Government has 30 days to present it. A small triumph for Toledo, and one more pause in the extradition process.
“The extradition case is prepared, and the government is ready to move forward with it now,” Haciski implored Hixson.
“I think the defense needs more time to prepare,” said the magistrate, and set a new date for a “status” hearing, still without progress. The reunion of Archer with Hixson will be next April 9. The decision on bail, in the hands of Judge Vince Chhabria, should arrive much earlier.
–Penalist says it does not affect the process–
Peruvian criminal lawyer Carlos Caro considers that the decision taken by Judge Hixson in the case of Alejandro Toledo It only seeks to exhaust all that its right of defense means.
“If they are incriminating evidence, you have the right to see them. However, the US prosecution I could have difficulty obtaining them because they are documents that are part of the record of effective collaboration of Peru that need judicial authorization to leave, ”he said.
– .
