Peru Court Orders Keiko Fujimori To Return To Prison

Peru court orders Keiko Fujimori to return to prison

Lima, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 29th Jan, 2020 ) :A Peruvian judge ordered opposition leader Keiko Fujimori to return to prison for a further 15 months in pre-trial detention Tuesday as part of an investigation into Latin America's sprawling Odebrecht corruption scandal.

Fujimori, 44, who was in court to hear the ruling by Judge Victor Zuniga, was immediately arrested and taken into custody.

"I impose preventive detention for a period of 15 months," Zuniga told the court in Lima after a hearing that lasted 10 hours.

Fujimori previously spent 13 months in pre-trial detention before she was released in November, but anti-corruption prosecutors had appealed that decision by the Constitutional Court.

Once Peru's most popular politician, she rejected accusations that she was a flight risk and posed a danger of obstruction to prosecutor Jose Domingo Perez's investigations.

Perez believes there is new information against Fujimori, which he argued would increase the risk of flight and obstruction of justice.

Tuesday's ruling caps a disastrous few days for Fujimori, whose once-powerful Popular Force party was decimated in legislative elections on Sunday, losing dozens of seats in the Congress it had dominated since 2016.

Fujimori is accused of accepting $1.2 million in illicit party funding from Brazilian construction giant Odebrecht for her unsuccessful 2011 presidential election campaign.

Odebrecht has admitted to paying at least $29 million to Peruvian officials since 2004, and bribing four former Peruvian presidents.