Updated on 03/17/2020 at 22:05
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Northern District Judge Thomas S. Hixson has responded to the request for reconsideration he filed yesterday. Alejandro Toledo in a new attempt to secure bail. This time, the former president resorts to a conjunctural issue: the risk of contracting coronavirus if you remain in jail, and that this infection has complications due to your age.
Hixson has decided to schedule an extraordinary hearing by telephone this Thursday, March 19 at 1 in the afternoon (Peruvian time). In addition, it specifies that the federal prosecution has until this Wednesday at noon to respond to the former president’s arguments. “The motion of Alejandro Toledo to shorten the time, it is considered granted, ”he adds, given that he had been asked to speed up the process.
Yesterday Monday, the former president’s defense sent an official letter to Judge Hixson’s office requesting a new reconsideration of his request for bail, which has been denied once by said magistrate and once – two weeks ago – by judge Vince Chhabria. Nevertheless, Toledo says extraordinary circumstances now exist: the global pandemic of the new coronavirus Covid-19.
According to his defense, the unit in which the former president is held in the Maguire prison has the same guards as the establishment’s medical unit. In addition, the lawyers assure that Toledo “shares the same entertainment room and even breathes the same unfiltered air as the other inmates with medical conditions.”
Furthermore, they say that Toledo’s advanced age (74 years) and the hypertension he suffers assign him a “significantly higher risk of suffering a severe illness and dying.” “For these reasons, the signing attorneys plead with the Court to release Dr. Toledo and to avoid what could be both a human rights tragedy and a diplomatic disaster,” the document says.
Toledo has been detained in the United States by extradition mandate since July 16 of last year. First he was in the Santa Rita prison and later, to alleviate his prison conditions, he was transferred to the Maguire prison in San Mateo County (California). Since his imprisonment, he has been denied two bail requests.
The former leader of Peru Posible also has an appeal pending to the Ninth Circuit of the United States Court of Appeals, in which he seeks to reverse the last of these decisions. The former president is investigated in Peru for alleged bribes he would have received from the Brazilian construction company Odebrecht.
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