Peru’s Toledo returns home to join two other former heads of state in jail

Former Peruvian President Alejandro Toledo arrived from the US on Sunday and will likely become the third head of state to be imprisoned as the South American nation strives to end years of corruption.

Toledo, 77, will presumably complete his sentence in a police facility outside Lima, where former presidents Alberto Fujimori and Pedro Castillo are detained.

Toledo arrived at Lima airport in Peruvian government photos. Toledo, president from 2001 to 2006, surrendered Friday for extradition.

Peruvian authorities have accused Toledo of accepting $35 million in bribes from Odebrecht to secure the Interoceanica Sur highway contract.

He disputes prosecutors’ corruption claims of money laundering and cooperation. They want 20 years in prison.

2018. Extradition commenced. Toledo fled to the US last year amid corruption investigations against him and past associates.

Toledo, an economist and Stanford University degree, was the second former Peruvian president deported. Fujimori was extradited from Chile and sentenced to 25 years for human rights crimes.

Castillo is in pre-trial arrest for “rebellion” after trying to illegally dissolve Congress in December.

Former president Pedro Pablo Kuczynski was under house arrest in the Odebrecht investigation, while former president Alan Garcia shot himself in the head to avoid arrest in 2019 and died in hospital.

“We have this sad record of three former presidents in jail,” criminal lawyer Carlos Caro said. “There is no precedent in the region or anywhere else in the world.”