Peru: Prosecutors reiterate request for 30 years in prison for Keiko Fujimori

Peruvian anti-corruption prosecutor José Domingo Pérez ratified before a court on Tuesday, July 9, his request that right-wing political leader Keiko Fujimori be sentenced to 30 years and 10 months in prison for four crimes allegedly committed during the financing of her electoral campaigns in 2011 and 2016.

The politician, daughter of former President Alberto Fujimori, faces charges of money laundering and leading a criminal organization that received contributions for her electoral campaigns in 2011 and 2016, according to prosecutors who have been investigating her for almost a decade.

“In total, the specific sentence requested for the accused Keiko Sofía Fujimori Higuchi is 30 years and 10 months of imprisonment, 730 days of fine and disqualification of 15 years and 5 months,” Pérez explained during the resumption of hearings of the oral trial being conducted by the Third National Criminal Court against the daughter of former President Alberto Fujimori (1990-2000) and 45 other people.

Keiko Fujimori, who currently leads the influential right-wing Fuerza Popular party, is due to appear in court after the start of her trial following a long and extensive investigation by the Public Prosecutor’s Office. She was accompanied by her lawyer and other defendants in the trial, including former officials and activists or members of her party. The trial is being broadcast on television to millions of homes in Peru.

The trial is expected to include more than 2,000 witnesses, including a former president of Peru’s largest bank, who will testify against Fujimori. Dionisio Romero Paoletti, chairman of Credicorp Ltd. for more than a decade until 2021, will address the court in one of Peru’s most high-profile trials in recent years, against three-time presidential candidate Keiko Fujimori. Credicorp donated $3.65 million to Fujimori’s campaign in 2011.

Fujimori has declared himself innocent and denied the accusations.

When specifying the charges and the punishment for each defendant, the prosecutor considered that Fujimori should be convicted of the crime of criminal organization, as a leader, for direct intent and as a direct author, and for the crime of aggravated money laundering, with indirect (control of the fact) and material authorship.

During Tuesday’s hearing, which was not attended by Fujimori but was attended by her lawyer, Giulliana Loza, the prosecutor described the political leader’s party as a “criminal organization” that, he said, sought to “develop its criminal activity, but without being punished.”

“They are seeking impunity, which is the very nature of this type of criminal organisations that are brought to court. There is planning, but there is also execution,” he added. In addition, for the crime of aggravated obstruction of justice and for the crime of false declaration in administrative proceedings.

According to the prosecutor’s team investigating the Lava Jato case in Peru, the alleged illegal contributions received by Fujimori’s party for the 2011 and 2016 campaigns amount to 17 million dollars.

According to the Prosecutor’s Office, the main sources of these contributions were Odebrecht and the national groups Credicorp, Rasmussen, the National Confederation of Private Business Institutions (Confiep) and the businessman Luis Calle.

Citing the facts linked to the crime of money laundering, between 2011 and 2016, Pérez recalled that Odebrecht acknowledged before the United States Department of Justice that it paid bribes to finance political campaigns abroad with its profits from corruption.