Peru urges Trump to extradite ex-president said to have sought refuge in Israel
Lima thanks Netanyahu for refusing entry to Alejandro Toledo, whose wife is Jewish and who is on lam to avoid facing bribery charges
Peru’s President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski on Sunday urged US President Donald Trump to consider sending fugitive ex-Peruvian leader Alejandro Toledo — believed to be in the United States — back to Peru on graft charges.
The net appeared to be closing around Toledo, as Israel said it would refuse entry to the former leader accused of taking bribes from Brazil’s Odebrecht construction giant.
“President Kuczynski has asked Donald Trump to evaluate… with the State Department the idea of sending Toledo back to Peru,” where he is wanted on charges of taking $20 million in bribes while in office, state news agency Andina reported.
However, the United States — where Toledo is believed to be holed up — said it could not arrest Toledo until it received more information on the case against him, according to Peruvian officials, who were rushing to send investigation documents to their US counterparts.
Israel’s Foreign Ministry said earlier Sunday that Toledo was not aboard an evening flight from San Francisco that landed at the country’s main international airport.
“Toledo will be allowed in Israel only when his affairs in Peru are settled,” foreign ministry spokesman Emmanuel Nahshon said in a statement earlier in the day. But the former president was not on the flight, as had been reported.
The Peruvian government had said it had information that Toledo, whose wife, Eliane Karp, has Israeli citizenship, could have tried to flee to the Jewish state.
“We heard from a solid source that he was trying to flee to Israel. So we alerted Israel,” Interior Minister Carlos Basombrio said on RPP Radio.
Kuczynski thanked Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for not allowing in Toledo, the Peruvian president’s office said.
Peruvian police launched a manhunt for Toledo, 70, once hailed as an anti-corruption champion, after a judge ordered his arrest.
Peru’s authorities have a warrant for Toledo to be detained and held in preventive custody for 18 months pending a full investigation.
He was initially believed to be in Paris. But the Peruvian government said Friday it had information he was in San Francisco and there was concern he would try to flee to Israel.
Toledo is a visiting professor at Stanford University, near San Francisco, where he graduated with a PhD in economics.
He denies the accusations against him, branding them political persecution. But he has struggled to explain where the money came from.
He originally said it was a loan from his mother-in-law that came from compensation she received as a Holocaust survivor.
But his former vice president, David Waisman, himself a prominent member of Peru’s Jewish community, said the account was untrue.
