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FILE PHOTO: Former Peruvian President Alan Garcia talks to the media when he arrives at the National Prosecutor's Office in Lima, Peru on March 27, 2018. REUTERS / Guadalupe Pardo / Photo of the file
LIMA (Reuters) – Former Peruvian President Alan Garcia entered the Uruguayan Embassy and asked for asylum a few hours after being banned from leaving the country. country while it was the subject of an investigation for corruption, announced Sunday the Peruvian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Garcia entered Saturday night in the Embassy and Embassy of Uruguay in a residential area of Lima and asked for asylum, according to a statement from the Foreign Ministry.
Garcia "requested asylum in that country, in accordance with the provisions of the Convention on Diplomatic Asylum of 1954, to which Peru and Uruguay are parties," said the Ministry of Foreign Affairs .
The demand "should be evaluated by the Government of Uruguay", added the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Garcia's request comes a few hours after a judge on Saturday banned the ex-president from leaving the country for 18 months while he was under investigation for bribes allegedly received during the construction of an electric train in Lima by the Brazilian company Odebrecht.
Garcia, who resides mainly in Spain, arrived in Lima on Thursday to testify in this case before a prosecutor, who postponed the hearing and asked the former president not to leave the premises.
The prosecutor in this case, Jose Perez, also accused Garcia of having received $ 100,000 for taking part in a conference in Brazil. The money probably came from an Odebrecht fund, used to pay bribes in several Latin American countries.
The massive corruption scandal in Odebrecht has involved dozens of top Latin American officials accused of bribes in exchange for public works contracts.
Garcia served twice as President of Peru from 1985 to 1990 and from 2006 to 2011.
Report by Marco Aquino; Written by Scott Squires; Edited by Chris Reese
