A US judge will decide on Monday whether to overturn the extradition of Alejandro Toledo, who sees a ‘dangerous’ situation in Peru

The judge Laurel Bauerof the California court (United States), scheduled for Monday, February 27, the hearing to assess the suspension of the extradition of the ex-president Alejandro Toledo (2001-2006), as requested by his defence.

Present at the meeting were Rebecca Hacinski, representative of the US Department of Justice, and Tamara Crepet, new court-appointed lawyer to the former head of state accused of having received bribes from a million dollars from the Brazilian company Odebrecht.

Crepet asked that the hearing be postponed and that the suspension of the extradition be maintained until the judge rules. The request has been accepted. Through his lawyers, Toledo argued that since his initial habeas corpus denial, “circumstances have changed” in Peru, particularly after Pedro Castillo’s failed self-coup. .

“Conditions in Peru have become considerably more dangerous. The dismissal (of Castillo) led to a prolonged declaration of a state of emergency; the suspension of crucial constitutional rights; and violent protests, accompanied by even more violent responses from the police,” the former president argued, according to a document released by Trade.

The lawyers also said that Toledo would “suffer irreparable harm” given his age (76) and because of the “poor prison conditions in Peru”. The attorney for the Northern District of California on Wednesday requested his capture in order to hand him over to Peruvian authorities.

Specifically, Toledo faces an indictment for the alleged commission of the crimes of money laundering, collusion and influence peddling, in relation to the contracts awarded to Odebrecht for the construction of the interoceanic highway between Brazil and the Peru.

In a motion to Judge Thomas Hixon, prosecutor Stephanie Hinds explained that the risk of absconding had increased after the former president’s moratorium requests failed, so she asked that the bond he currently enjoys be revoked.

Toledo was previously arrested in 2019 in California, where he has resided for a few years, and spent 8 months in prison for flight risk, although he may have been released from prison and placed under house arrest in March 2020, with the triggering of the pandemic. .

Last September, American justice gave the green light to his extradition to Peru, although the final decision was left in the hands of the American Secretary of State, Antony Blinken.

For the Peruvian prosecutor’s office, the extradition is “inexorable”, despite the appeal filed in the court of the northern district of California to request the suspension of the procedure. “I think the decision is already inexorable, to hand over Mr. Toledo in the next few days,” he said. N-channel the coordinating prosecutor of the special team in charge of investigating the Lava Jato case, Raphael Vela.

The prosecutor added that the prosecution also considers that the decision of the judge who received the appeal from Toledo in the United States “will be favorable to the extradition process.”

Vela, however, stressed that it is “difficult” to estimate the exact time the delivery of the ex-governor will take, but he calculated that it could take place next March.