Law & Justice

Court to vote on house arrest for ex-President Kuczynski

Court to vote on house arrest for ex-President Kuczynski
District Attorney Hernan Mendoza changes the request from imprisonment to house arrest in Pedro Pablo Kuczynski’s appeal hearing. Far left is Kuczynski’s lawyer, Cesar Nakasaki, and his driver, Jose Luis Bernaola. Source: Andina

In a court hearing Friday morning, the District Attorney’s office withdrew its request for pre-trial imprisonment for ex-President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski and instead is calling for house arrest for the same period of time.  The three-judge panel is to vote on the house arrest, the 36-month term or less, and on a possible S/.100,000 fine.

The change from prison to house arrest is primarily due to Kuczynski’s health, since last week the investigation team rejected his age, 80, as an argument for easier restrictions.

Kuczynski was arrested and jailed April 10 under a 10-day preliminary detention order as part of the investigations into his alleged links to the Brazilian construction giant, Odebrecht.  Hoever, he was rushed to hospital on the night of April 17, following the district attorney’s request for a 36-month preventive jail term. Kuczynski underwent heart surgery the following morning, and remains in the intensive care unit.  His brother, Michael Kuczynski, and his two elder daughters are in Lima.

The AngloAmerican Clinic Thursday issued a medical report indicating Kuczynski suffers from a form of arrhythmia (ventricular fibrillation) that poses a risk in stressful situations of cardiac arrest and sudden death.

The preliminary detention ordered initially is, basically, a scare tactic to encourage defendants to provide more information. In Kuczynski’s case, both his long-time driver, Jose Luis Bernaola, and his personal secretary, Gladys Jesus Kisic, were also arrested, on allegations of working with Kuczynski to launder money. Both Bernaola and Kisic have been released, although under restrictions, and are to pay S/.20,000 each in fines.

The investigations continue after more than a year — Kuczynski resigned from the presidency on March 21, 2018 and immediately ordered the lifting of banking secrecy on his accounts.  The allegations are that Kuczynski received illicit money from Odebrecht’s off-the-books Caja 2 and laundered it by transferring it to a bank account held by his driver and a joint bank account that he held with his secretary. Kuczynski’s defense argues that the only money received from Odebrecht was for fully legal consultancy fees, banked and taxed, that were paid by the Brazilian firm’s legitimate operations. The “laundering” is related to bank transfers, which in the case of the driver were to pay household management and utilities of Kuczynski’s San Isidro home and weekend home in Cieneguilla, and transfers to his secretary were for larger expenses and other payments.

Kuczynski is prohibited from leaving the country, and there is an embargo on his real estate properties and bank accounts.

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