Live
Audio Only
Peruvian President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski said Sunday that former president Alejandro Toledo, accused of receiving millions in bribes from embattled Brazilian construction firm Odebrecht, betrayed his country and must return to Peru to face justice.
Prosecutors are preparing an arrest warrant for Toledo after discovering evidence that implicates him in US$20 million in bribes that Brazil's Odebrecht has acknowledged distributing to win a contract during his 2001-2006 government. According to a source in Peru's prosecutor's office, authorities detected US$11 million that was allegedly transferred to an associate of Toledo, leading investigators to raid Toledo's house in Lima Saturday.
The former president, who has denied taking bribes, was in France Saturday, though his current whereabouts are unknown.
“It's a betrayal of the Peruvian people, and it's a betrayal of his colleagues that worked so hard," Kuczynski told Colombia's W Radio.
“He must straighten himself out and come back to Peru and answer what the investigators are going to ask him."
Kuczynski, who was Toledo's finance minister and prime minister, is the subject of a separate preliminary investigation regarding a law he signed off on in 2006 that removed legal obstacles to highway contracts awarded to Odebrecht and other Brazilian companies. He denies any wrongdoing.
Newsletter
