Hearing to determine if Keiko Fujimori returns to pretrial detention will be on June 21

(CNN Spanish) – The hearing to determine whether to revoke the appearance order with restrictions for preventive detention that was issued against the presidential candidate Keiko Fujimori will be held on June 21 at 4 p.m. Miami time, according to the Court. National Superior of Specialized Criminal Justice of Peru.

Days ago, the prosecutor José Domingo Pérez, head of the special team that works in the investigations related to alleged acts of corruption at Odebrecht, asked a judge to revoke the summons with restrictions that was issued against Fujimori and that preventive detention be imposed again against him.

Prosecutor requested preventive detention

Prosecutor Pérez, head of the special team that works on investigations related to alleged acts of corruption at Odebrecht, asked a judge to revoke the summons with restrictions that was issued to Keiko Fujimori, presidential candidate of Fuerza Popular, and to impose prison again preventive against him, according to the prosecutor’s letter to which CNN had access.

The prosecutor, according to the five-page brief, considers that Fujimori allegedly violated the rules of conduct imposed by the court that ordered his release when he met with the witness in the case, Miguel Ángel Torres Morales. The Andean Agency was the first to report on this request from the prosecutor.

According to the Prosecutor’s Office, Fujimori was seen communicating with Torres Morales on June 9 at a press conference in which she (who the letter identifies as “the accused”), presented the witness as a lawyer and political spokesperson for the Fuerza Popular party. The letter includes as evidence an image of the press conference in question in which Torres Morales is sitting next to Fujimori with a third individual. The judge must decide whether to accept this request from the prosecutor.

Fujimori called the request to return to prison as “absurd.”

“At the beginning of this campaign the suspension of the match was requested, it did not progress. At the end of the first round, the impeachment request was made in advance. In the second round, there were distorted leaks, but now, what we have heard and read in the news today already exceeds any previous attempt, “he said at a press conference in Lima.

Then he added: “Today the prosecutor Pérez makes a request to change the appearance that I have had for more than a year to make a request for preventive detention, but the most absurd of all is the reason why he is requesting this change. He just said that yesterday he realized that Mr. Micky Torres has been supporting this campaign ”.

Torres was at the press conference with Fujimori and has publicly participated in the entire Fuerza Popular campaign.

His lawyer, Giulliana Loza, said that this request “lacks any legal and factual basis.” He added that Torres “is a witness in this case, it is not one that has even a minimal relationship with those people or with the fact itself investigated with respect to the alleged simulated contributors.” “Therefore, Ms. Fujimori has not violated any rules of conduct.”

For his part, Torres Morales told CNN that the Prosecutor’s Office “at no time” summoned him as a witness on issues of false contributions. He said he collaborated as a witness on “totally and completely different” issues. He called the prosecutor’s request “crazy.”

The prosecution’s brief states that “the defendant Fujimori Higuchi is aware that Miguel Ángel Torres Morales is a witness on behalf of the Prosecutor’s Office, since he has been offered in such capacity with the prosecution,” something that Fujimori was notified on 4 of June. The Prosecutor’s Office also says that “Torres Morales received his statement on September 3, 2020, according to the testimony record of that date, in which Giulliana Loza Avalos participated as a defense attorney for the defendant Fujimori Higuchi” .

Fujimori had been released from prison for the second time in five months in May 2020 under some conditions, including a ban on communicating with co-defendants or witnesses in the case.

In March of this year, the Prosecutor’s Office requested 30 years in prison against him for the alleged crimes of organized crime, money laundering, obstruction of justice and false declaration in administrative proceedings. A trial is still awaited to determine whether he is guilty or innocent.

Keiko Fujimori, daughter of former President Alberto Fujimori, has been investigated by the Peruvian Prosecutor’s Office since 2018. This in the framework of the Odebrecht case for allegedly having received contributions from this company for its presidential campaigns. The candidate has always rejected those accusations and affirmed her innocence.

With information from Jimena de la Quintana, Abel Alvarado and Florence Trucco