It was neither the first nor the third. The exmandatario Alejandro Toledo He got a house arrest order on his fifth attempt to secure bail. However, the reason why the former president may leave the Maguire (California) correctional facility is far from the reasons why in the past he requested less burdensome measures: he is afraid of catching coronavirus (COVID-19).
Despite the fact that the United States Attorney’s Office has announced that it will appeal the decision of the judge of the Court of the Northern District of California Thomas S. Hixson, the most important requirement for Toledo to return to his home is the payment of US $ 500 thousand in cash , of a total of S $ 1 million required as bail.
In this case, the extradition process in which Toledo finds himself responds to the investigation in Peru around the US $ 20 million that he would have received from the Odebrecht company as a bribe in exchange for it being favored with the granting of the tranches. 2 and 3 of the Interoceánica Sur highway, during his government. The former leader of Peru Possible is accused of the alleged crimes of money laundering, collusion and influence peddling.
A new extradition procedure is scheduled for April 9, although, initially, the State of California will remain in quarantine until April 7. Toledo’s lawyers are seeking to force the US prosecution to deliver 16 pages of documentary information about the extradition process that Peru is promoting.
Roberto Su, lawyer for the former head of state, has agreed with the decision taken by Judge Hixson, who has also ordered that Alejandro Toledo have a shackle to be monitored by GPS. For his part, the Minister of Justice and Human Rights, Fernando Castañeda, has said that the decision adopted by the magistrate is respected, since it will not affect the extradition process. This is true?
Outlook
For former anti-corruption attorney Iván Meini, the variation of the prison for house arrest responds to an exceptional situation that “in no way can it be taken as a triumph of Toledo’s legal defense“
“The danger of flight has not been reduced, it is a matter of public health that applies to him and to other people. The process continues as such and this must be seen for what it is: a health measure to avoid massive infections of coronavirus“He indicated to Trade.
A similar position is expressed by criminal lawyer Rafael Chanjan, who argued that the humanitarian nature of Judge Hixson’s decision would not constitute an obstacle or delay to the extradition process, the same one that “is already well underway.”
Chanjan asserts that while seeking to nullify the probability of a leak occurring, the chances of this occurring are almost non-existent due to the fact that Alejandro Toledo will be permanently monitored.
Regarding the justification, or not, of the measure, Meini specifies that, given the context posed by the present pandemic, it is understood that there are caveats regarding the restriction measures imposed against those investigated.
Likewise, Chanjan considers that it is undeniable that the former president will, from now on, have more communication with his legal defense in Peru. However, he said he believed that said circumstance would hardly strengthen his position before the investigations that follow him or before the United States justice.
It should be remembered that during the eight months he has been in prison, the former president has filed five previous appeals seeking his freedom, and even arguing that the prison affected his mental health. What he had were only judicial setbacks, until the conjuncture by the coronavirus worked in his favor.
In this line, the former anti-corruption attorney Yván Montoya explained that, in the judge’s decision, the psychological or mental factor alleged by Toledo in a previous request for bail, did not prevail, but that of risk of contagion of coronavirus.
Therefore, he said that it is a humanitarian decision and stressed that, under current conditions, there is no risk of flight. “The prosecution, once this situation is overcome, I am sure that it will request his re-entry to a kind of preventive detention because I think we would already be very close to a final pronouncement of the judge“He said.
The status of the process
The Peruvian State, through the Ministry of Foreign Relations, sent the extradition request on May 25, 2018 to the Peruvian embassy in Washington, so that it can be immediately presented to the Department’s Law Enforcement and Intelligence Office of the US State
This is a file of more than 6,000 pages translated into English, the copy of which was forwarded by the State Department to the Office of International Affairs of the US Department of Justice. This began to review the documentation in late January 2019.
The case reached the Court of the Northern District of California, state of residence of Toledo, where Judge Thomas S. Hixson ordered the arrest of the former president in July 2019. At that time, the then Peruvian Minister of Justice and today Prime Minister Vicente Zeballos estimated that the extradition process could take a year.
It is currently in that period. However, for Montoya, the US justice he should have already ruled on the merits, although the times have varied as a result of the resources presented by Toledo to be released and the current situation.
“With a series of resources raising his freedom, [Alejandro Toledo] has prevented the judge from making a decision on the merits. And this situation has also come to further postpone the date on which the judge has to make a substantive decision on the extraditability of Toledo. It is only the term that has been affected. it’s a matter of time. He has been a little lucky and he has also been disrupting the normal process by repeated requests for his freedom.“He explained.
It may interest you:
►Alejandro Toledo released: the times that his request was rejected
►Alejandro Toledo and the two great cases he faces before the Peruvian justice
– .
