The former President of Peru, Pedro Pablo Kuczynski, is arrested in a case related to the Odebrecht case – 04/10/2019

The former president of Peru Pedro Pablo Kuczynski was arrested on Wednesday in connection with a money laundering investigation related to the case Odebrecht.

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This order was requested by the prosecutor José Domingo Pérez, member of the special team investigating the Peruvian political elite accused of receiving bribes from the Brazilian construction company Odebrecht .

Kuczynski left his home in Lima Wednesday, arrested by the national police under a remand order for ten days.

Kuczynski, 80, left the garage from his home in a car driven by National Police agents heading for Legal Medicine headquarters. He will then be transferred to the office of the Lima Police Prefecture.

While he was being transferred to the police premises, Kuczynski said on his Twitter account that he had received the will of the judiciary to "temporarily arrest me for ten days".

"It's arbitrary, I've cooperated absolutely with all investigations and attended punctually at all the convocations of the judicial authorities, "he noted.

"I have never feared justice," said the ex-governor elected to the presidency of Peru in 2016 and resigned in 2018 for his alleged links with Odebrecht.

"I absolutely got involved in all investigations, I never objected to any investigation," he added, following the investigations initiated by the work awarded under the government Alejandro Toledo (2001-2006), in which he was prime minister and outgoing president. of the economy.

Kuczynski admitted that it was "a very difficult time for me but I will deal with it with integrity who only had the desire to have a better country ".

His defense announced that he would appeal the measure because the exmandatario had always collaborated with the investigations of the prosecutor's office and accepted the obstacle to leave the country dictated after his resignation from the presidency of Peru .

According to the resolution published by El Comercio and RPP Noticias, Judge Jorge Luis Chávez emphasizes that the Public Prosecutor's Office presented as "precedent" the "money laundering in which "the former president incurred as a result of" his intervention in alleged acts of corruption "related to two projects granted to Odebrecht.

Projects are the Sections 2 and 3 of the Interoceanic Highway and the Olmos Hydroelectric Irrigation Project, awarded in the government of Alejandro Toledo (2001-2006), fugitive of justice for a millionaire bribe handed over by Odebrecht and with a warrant for arrest.

In addition, a Lima court ordered the entry into the home of the 80-year-old former president and two other people linked to the politician, including his personal secretary.

Mercedes Aráoz, Peru's second vice-president, told local radio RPP that she was of the opinion that the court ruling was "surprising". "I do not understand why this type of action, he collaborated with everything"

Justice badociates Kuczynski with alleged crimes related to the construction of "Interoceanic Highway", a land route that connects Brazil to Peru as well as the Olmos project, a blocade in the north of the country.

Kuczynski, a former Wall Street banker, was president of Peru between 2016 and 2018, when he resigned as a result of a scandal related to the purchase of votes by opposition lawmakers in exchange for political favors.

He is the third Peruvian president that the justice ordered to imprison in a preventive way. About Alejandro Toledo (2001-2016) weighs a warrant for arrest but resides in the United States. Ollanta Humala (2011-2016) was also imprisoned between 2017 and 2018.

Since last March, Kuczynski had been banned from leaving the country. Even before resigning, the former president was the subject of an investigation by the prosecution for the alleged Links to your Westfield business with the Brazilian construction company Odebrecht and the First Capital company of his Chilean partner Gerardo Sepúlveda, when Kuczynski was minister of the government of Alejandro Toledo (2001-2006).

Kuczynski has been following the investigations against him since Lima and stays at home in the district of San Isidro, waiting for the press which is waiting for the judicial police to intervene for the arrest to be effective.

Source: EFE, AFP and AP

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