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Peruvian judge Richard Carhuancho ordered 36 months of preventive detention against lawyer and businessman Vicente Silva Checa, considered an adviser "in the shadow" of opposition leader Keiko Fujimori, while they are being investigated in a case of alleged money laundering.
After a hearing that took place throughout Saturday and concluded around 10:30 p.m. local time, the judge ruled that a preventive detention be issued against Silva Checa until November 2021.
He argued that the lawyer was allegedly an advisor "in the shadow" of Keiko and would have sent the treasurer of the Fuerza Popular party to the Amazonian region of San Martín to obtain people who would conceal money supposedly delivered by the Brazilian construction company Odebrecht.
"There is a serious suspicion of money laundering with respect to Silva Checa in the form of concealment," Carhuancho remarked, before noting that documents related to the investigation of the Lava Jato case in Peru were found at his home.
The judge said that, although the lawyer works at home, that does not fully guarantee that he will not evade justice and may escape from the country.
After hearing the decision, the money laundering prosecutor José Domingo Pérez expressed his agreement, while the lawyer's defense announced that he will file an appeal for annulment, considering that he has not been an advisor to Keiko.
Silva Checa was immediately taken by agents of the Peruvian Police to the cells of the Judicial Branch, waiting for this Sunday or Monday to be transferred to the prison provided by the National Penitentiary Institute (INPE).
Vicente Silva Checa was previously accused of being a fixer for the former presidential advisor Vladimiro Montesinos between 2001 and 2002 which resulted in his conviction and a sentence of 29 months in prison, and then another 11 months in house arrest.
According to a video recorded in secret by the ex-adviser, the lawyer received US$2 million from Montesinos to buy a cable television channel to support the regime of dicator Alberto Fujimori (1990-2000), Keiko's father.
In the current investigation for alleged money laundering, the lawyer became the second person to receive 36 months of preventive detention, after Keiko Fujimori, against whom Judge Carhuancho ordered a similar measure last week.
The judge then said that Fujimori is "a serious suspect" to lead a criminal organization within his party to capture illicit money and thus come to power, from where she would repay the favors with acts of corruption.
Among the money hidden under this may be the one million dollars that Odebrecht claimed to have donated to Keiko Fujimori's election campaign in 2011, apparently from the account with which it paid bribes in a dozen Latin American countries.
So far, the judge has listened to prosecutor Pérez's accusations and the arguments of the defense of nine of the eleven investigated in this case, so he must still resolve the situation of the majority of those denounced, in hearings that will continue next Tuesday. , as announced today.
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