Former President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski, 80 and living with an artificial heart valve, was hospitalized in the Anglo-American clinic Tuesday evening and underwent heart surgery on Wednesday. He has been serving a 10-day preliminary jail sentence since April 10, while the district attorney’s office investigates allegations of money laundering and organized crime in the Odebrecht bribery scandals.
Although a hearing is expected to be held Thursday on District Attorney Domingo Perez’s request for a 36-month preventive custody sentence, Perez today filed a request to change imprisonment to a sentence of house arrest. Kuczynski’s two homes have been impounded, his bank accounts blocked, and he has been prohibited from leaving the country since his resignation from the Presidency in March 2018.
Kuczynski’s private secretary, Gloria Jesus Kisic, and his driver for the past 22 years, Jose Luis Bernaola, were also in preliminary custody but were released Tuesday. They face the same allegations, and the same request for a 36-month preventive custody sentence.
The D.A.’s argument for Kuczynski’s preliminary and now preventive imprisonment includes that the former president poses a flight risk, because his family is living in the United States and not in Lima and because of an “incident” last year when requested permission to travel last year for a heart check-up at the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota (the travel permit was not granted); that he has refused to hand over documents requested; and that he had undue influence on his accountant, Denise Hernandez, in Westfield Capital between 2000 and 2017 (there is no documented proof and the D.A. has yet to question Hernandez or even obtain details of her work).
As a number of legal analysts have pointed out, the statute of limitations has run out on any alleged crimes of receiving consultancy fees from Odebrecht while Kuczynski served in the Toledo administration (2001-2006), and fees that he did receive were paid by Odebrecht’s legal operations and not through the company’s off-the-books system specifically set up for bribes and known as the Caja 2. Kuczynski’s consultancy fees were banked and filed with the tax authorities.
During the appeal Tuesday against his preliminary detention, Kuczynski said that it was shameful that his reputation in his 60-year career has been destroyed by the congressional Lava Jato commission, which among other allegations misconstrued a payment of S/.820,000 to Sunat, the tax authority, which he made on March 21, 2018, the day he resigned from the Presidency. “I pay my taxes, as we all should,” Kuczynski said.
It seems the charges against PPK are rather vague. It will take 3 years or more for any actual trial. The prosecutors should present their evidence now , and detail what laws have been broken. MR. PPK does not have several years to wait for a trial. With his age and serious health issues it is not justice being given on a reasonable time. The Peruvian President should issue a full pardon for MR. PPK, and let him go back to United States to have his heart condition treated. Otherwise Peruvian justice system will look cruel and vengeful if they put this old man through years of stress. If so, I doubt he will be with us by the time they decide whether he ever broke any laws.
I went to school with PPK at Markham in Peru & also at Rossall an English public school in the UK until he went on to Oxford University. Before all those school years he was my best childhood friend. It is inconceivable that the person I knew for all those years could be guilty of the current allegations. ES UNA DESGRACIA QUE ESTO LE PODIA PASAR A UN SEÑOR TAN DIGNO, TAN HONESTO Y TAN AMANTE DEL PERU Y EL PUEBLO PERUANO.