{"id":60193,"date":"2020-01-29T14:31:48","date_gmt":"2020-01-29T06:31:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.namnewsnetwork.org\/?p=60193"},"modified":"2020-01-29T14:31:49","modified_gmt":"2020-01-29T06:31:49","slug":"peru-court-orders-opposition-leader-keiko-fujimori-to-return-to-prison","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/?p=60193","title":{"rendered":"Peru court orders opposition leader Keiko Fujimori to return to prison"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"Keiko<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Keiko Fujimori arrives at a Lima courthouse with her husband Mark Villanella \n\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

LIMA, Jan 29 (NNN-AGENCIES) — A Peruvian judge ordered opposition leader Keiko Fujimori to return to prison for a further 15 months’ pre-trial detention as part of an investigation into Latin America’s sprawling Odebrecht corruption scandal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fujimori, 44, who was in court to hear the ruling by Judge Victor Zuniga, was immediately arrested and taken to Chorrillos women’s prison in south Lima.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“I impose preventive detention for a period of 15 months,” Zuniga told the court in Lima after a hearing that lasted 10 hours.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fujimori previously spent 13 months in pre-trial detention at the Chorrillos facility before she was released in November, but anti-corruption prosecutors had appealed that decision by the Constitutional Court.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Wearing a black blouse, Fujimori hugged and kissed her husband before entering the courtroom towards the end of the session to hear the ruling.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“If you are watching this video, it is because Judge Victor Zuniga unfairly decided to send me to jail again,” Fujimori said in a video released on social media minutes after her arrest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“This is not justice. This is persecution,” she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Her lawyer, Giuliana Loza, told reporters: “Obviously, this defense is appealing the ruling.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Once Peru’s most popular politician, Fujimori had rejected accusations that she was a flight risk and posed a danger of obstruction to prosecutor Jose Domingo Perez’s investigations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Perez, who was not in court, had requested the judge impose a further 18 month pre-trial detention period, saying there was an increased risk she would flee the country as there was new information against her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fujimori is accused of accepting US$1.2 million in illicit party funding from Brazilian construction giant Odebrecht for her unsuccessful 2011 presidential election campaign.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Odebrecht has admitted to paying at least US$29 million to Peruvian officials since 2004, and bribing four former Peruvian presidents.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But the Odebrecht scandal stretches far beyond Peru.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Latin America’s largest construction firm has admitted to paying hundreds of millions of dollars in bribes to win juicy contracts in 12 countries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fujimori, who twice was narrowly defeated in presidential election runoffs -in 2011 and again in 2016 – has seen her popularity rating plummet during the case though she remains an influential figure in Peruvian politics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She grew up during her father Alberto Fujimori’s deeply divisive decade as president from 1990-2000.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Keiko sided with her father when her mother Susana Higuchi accused Alberto’s men of torturing her and divorced him in 1994.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With her mother gone from the political stage, Keiko effectively took over first lady duties at the age of just 19.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Educated in the United States, she married an American, Mark Villanella, with whom she has two daughters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Villanella undertook a hunger strike outside his wife’s prison late last year to press for her release.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She announced in December she was taking a break from politics to prioritize her family.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Alberto Fujimori, now 81, remains in jail for crimes against humanity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A court held him responsible for massacres of people he said were terrorists in 1991 and 1992, including one incident in which a university professor and nine students were abducted by a death squad and killed. — NNN-AGENCIESc<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Keiko Fujimori arrives at a Lima courthouse with her husband Mark Villanella  LIMA, Jan 29 (NNN-AGENCIES) — A Peruvian judge ordered opposition leader Keiko Fujimori to return to prison for a further 15 months’ pre-trial detention as part of an investigation into Latin America’s sprawling Odebrecht corruption scandal. Fujimori, 44, who was in court to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[208],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60193"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=60193"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60193\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=60193"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=60193"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=60193"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}