The Chilean businessman Gerardo Sepúlveda, a partner of former Peruvian President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski (PPK), denounced Peru to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) for “illegal retention”, before testifying this Friday before the Prosecutor’s Office for corruption cases related to Odebrecht.
In a statement from his lawyers to the local media, Sepúlveda, who is currently participating in the investigations as a witness, announced that he resorted to CIDH considering that the Peruvian justice system extended its prohibition to leave the country irregularly and therefore held it illegally.
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The Chilean executive was prevented from leaving the country on February 26 last for a period of two months, but the national confinement decreed by the COVID-19 It caused the deadline to run out without being able to carry out the interrogation planned by the Prosecutor’s Office.
Given this circumstance, Sepúlveda tried to board a humanitarian repatriation flight to Santiago de Chile on April 27, but the Peruvian immigration authorities prevented him. That same day, the courts neutralized the period elapsed since the confinement, so the prohibition remained in force until June 7.
The term was then extended again until this Friday, June 26. The lawyers of Gerardo Sepúlveda they understand that from April 27 to June 7 their client was illegally held in Peru.
The Chilean will testify before the prosecutor José Domingo Pérez, in charge of the Interoceanic Highway case, one of the case chapters Odebrecht, a Brazilian construction company that between 2005 and 2014 paid millionaire bribes to high officials in Peru to win large public works contracts.
Sepúlveda’s lawyers also allege that the businessman was included in the file of this case irregularly, since in his opinion the 36-month period that the Prosecutor’s Office had to expire in order to carry out proceedings and file a criminal complaint has expired.
The former president is involved in the file of the Interoceanic Highway Alejandro Toledo (2001-2006), with an ongoing extradition request to the United States for allegedly receiving $ 20 million in bribes from Odebrecht.
PPK He is currently under house arrest while being investigated by the Prosecutor’s Office to investigate whether, while he was minister of Toledo, he also received unlawful payments from Odebrecht through alleged fictitious consultancies of Westfield Capital, company of the exmandatario where Sepúlveda is a partner.
On June 12, the First National Appeals Chamber confirmed the measure of appearance with restrictions ordered against the Chilean businessman in the Westfield Capital Case. In this way, he rejected the appeal of the Lava Jato special team to apply preventive detention.
Source: EFE
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