Peru: Prosecutor asks for 30 years in prison for Keiko Fujimori

A Peruvian prosecutor on Thursday requested 30 years in jail for presidential candidate Keiko Fujimori and the dissolution of her party for allegedly laundering money from the Brazilian construction company Odebrecht and other Peruvian millionaires who secretly contributed to their previous political campaigns.

The jail request comes a month before Peru’s most important elections, in which voters will elect a new president and 130 legislators for the 2021-2026 period.

Prosecutor José Domingo Pérez came to court along with five blocks that contained more than 15,000 pages of his two-year investigation. The daughter of the convicted former president Alberto Fujimori (1990-2000) is also accused of organized crime, obstruction of justice and false statement.

The indictment also asks to prohibit her from leaving the country for 36 months while the trial lasts, the dissolution of Fuerza Popular – the party that Keiko Fujimori founded in 2010 – and the liquidation of a real estate company owned by her husband, the American Mark Villanella.

Peru will hold its presidential elections on April 11 and Keiko Fujimori is one of 19 candidates. If neither manages to obtain more than 50% of the votes, the two most voted will go to a second round in June and the one with the most votes will win.

The 45-year-old presidential candidate said on her social networks that “no matter how much a prosecutor now wants to get into the final stretch of the first round, I will continue to face this persecution and move forward with energy so that together we can overcome this health and economic emergency” .

This is the third time that Keiko Fujimori has run. Before he did it with no luck in 2011 and 2016.

Prosecutor Pérez later told the press that Keiko’s response incites “aggression” on him and shows “contempt for the officials who carry out their function of prosecuting the crime and prosecuting.”

Pérez affirmed that the candidate would have received more than one million dollars from Odebrecht, which she laundered through the use of donors, raffles and cocktails as a facade.

He added that he would also have received money from Dionisio Romero Paoletti, president of Peru’s most important bank, called Banco de Crédito, as well as from dairy entrepreneurs and casino owners in exchange for the support of Fujimori legislators.

The prosecutor also includes in his accusation that Fujimori received money from the Peruvian Luis Calle, accused by the United States of being a drug trafficker who is a member of an international money laundering network for other drug traffickers from Colombia and the Middle East.

Fujimori acknowledged in 2013 that Calle had contributed $12,349 and that he was going to return the money but claimed that he did not know him.

The candidate was imprisoned for more than 16 months between 2019 and 2020, serving two arrest warrants requested by the prosecutor.

According to various polls, Fujimori does not lead the preferences of Peruvians as in 2016.

Peruvian voters are heading to the elections amid widespread apathy caused by the effects of the new coronavirus pandemic, which has so far left more than 1.38 million infected and more than 48,300 dead according to the Center for Science and Engineering of Systems from Johns Hopkins University.