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PERU-POLITICS-JUSTICE-CORRUPTION
Peru court to decide on long Keiko Fujimori detention
LIMA, Oct 21, 2018 (BSS/AFP) – A Peruvian court will
decide on Sunday whether to grant a prosecutor’s request to
place opposition leader Keiko Fujimori in preventive
detention for 36 months, which would likely scupper her 2021
presidential hopes.
Anti-corruption prosecutor Jose Domingo Perez has asked the
court to hold Fujimori and 11 others for the lengthy period
as his team investigates who benefited from millions of
dollars in campaign bribes from Brazilian construction giant
Odebrecht.
Her lawyer Giuliana Loza described the prosecutor’s request
as “an outrage.”
Judge Richard Concepcion Carhuancho of the First
Preliminary Investigation Court will hear the case on Sunday
morning, the judiciary said.
He is the same judge that earlier this month allowed
Lopez’s request to hold Fujimori in preventive detention for
10 days.
Peru’s constitution allows for suspects to be held without
trial for up to 36 months in complex cases such as the
Odebrecht investigation, which involves tracing millions of
dollars in illicit payments. It also ensures that suspects
cannot interfere with evidence or witnesses in an ongoing
investigation.
Acceding to the prosecutor’s request would all but end
Keiko’s chances of the presidency, after she lost run-offs in
2011 and 2016.
Lopez lodged his request Friday, only two days after an
appeals court ordered Fujimori’s release from a week-long
stay in prison as part of the same investigation. – Under
scrutiny –
The 43-year-old daughter and political heir to disgraced
ex-president Alberto Fujimori, Keiko has increasingly come
under the spotlight as prosecutors investigate millions of
dollars in illicit campaign contributions to several former
presidents.
They say former presidents Pedro Pablo Kuczynski, Alan
Garcia and Alejandro Toledo all took undeclared campaign
contributions in exchange for pledges to have the Brazilian
construction giant win local tenders.
Their key witness, former Odebrecht Peru chief Jorge
Barata, said he doled out millions of dollars to Peruvian
presidential candidates between 2001 and 2016.
Prosecutor Perez believes Fujimori — leader of the main
opposition Popular Force party — received more than $1.2
million from Odebrecht for her 2011 presidential campaign.
She denies all wrongdoing.
Odebrecht has admitted spending hundreds of millions of
dollars to buy politicians’ favor in governments all across
Latin America.
The appeal court’s decision to release Fujimori after a
week of her previous detention was a setback for both the
judge and the prosecutor, who have gained notoriety by
prosecuting top politicians over the Odebrecht scandal.
New Interior Minister Carlos Moran, a former police
general, immediatly ordered police to tighten security around
Lopez.
“The Peruvian Police will step up protection for prosecutor
Domingo Perez as well as for his family and his home,” he
said on Twitter. – ‘Remove judge’ –
Fujimori, who is not obliged to attend Sunday’s hearing,
has petitioned the court to remove Judge Concepcion
Carhuancho from the case.
“The first thing we have to resolve is the recusal,” she
told reporters.
The case could drag on, as her legal team can appeal.
The fortunes of the Fujimori familiy have dominated Peru’s
politics for the past year.
Though Keiko’s Popular Force party is the biggest in
Congress, her public feud with her younger brother Kenji —
who leads a rival wing of the party — and their legal woes
have chipped away at her popularity. Kenji is facing trial
for bribery.
Meanwhile, the 80-year-old patriarch, former president
Alberto Fujimori, had his humanitarian pardon for crimes
against humanity revoked by a court last month and is once
again in hospital.
His chronic ill health means a return to prison would be a
“death sentence”, he has told the authorities.
He has publicly pleaded with his children to join forces
and Keiko said after her week in prison that she had taken
time to reflect on “the unity of my family.”
The country’s president, Martin Vizcarra — who has made
fighting corruption his priority — has meanwhile risen
steadily in the polls.
BSS/AFP/MRI/1132 HRS