LIMA, Nov 2 — Peru’s powerful opposition leader Keiko Fujimori was taken to a jail in Lima yesterday, one day after a court ordered she be held in preventive detention for three years pending the outcome of a multi-million dollar corruption probe.
The 43-year-old was taken to a woman’s prison in the south of the capital after a night in a sleeping bag in a cell at the Palace of Justice, where judge Richard Concepcion Carhuancho delivered the verdict Fujimori had feared.
Television images showed a handcuffed Fujimori smiling as she was taken yesterday in a police vehicle to the Chorrillos women’s prison.
Around a dosen supporters of the Popular Force party that Fujimori founded in 2001 chanted, “Courage, Keiko, your people are here”, as she arrived at the prison.
The daughter of disgraced former president Alberto Fujimori is accused of accepting US$1.2 million (RM5.02 million) in illicit party funding from Brazilian construction giant Odebrecht for her 2011 presidential campaign.
She could face 20 years in prison if eventually convicted.
In ordering her detention, Carhuancho said there was a “serious suspicion” that Fujimori was running a “de facto criminal organization that is entrenched within the party” and had laundered illicit money.
He described Fujimori as a “high flight risk” and said “the only necessary measure in her case is undoubtedly preventive detention.”
The judge took eight hours to reach his verdict, which almost certainly scuppers Fujimori’s hopes of running for the presidency in 2021.
Twice before, in 2011 and 2016, she was defeated in a presidential run-off, despite the Popular Force party winning the most votes in both elections.
Her attorney Giuliana Loza told RPP radio station she would lodge an appeal on Monday.
Carhuancho is due to rule on public prosecutor Jose Domingo Perez’s request for another 10 suspects to be held in preventive detention in connection with the Odebrecht investigation, which involves tracing millions of dollars in illicit payments.
Odebrecht has admitted spending hundreds of millions of dollars to buy politicians’ favour in governments across Latin America. — AFP
