The leader of Fuerza Popular, Keiko Fujimori, announced this Monday that her group is evaluating initiating legal actions against the anti-corruption prosecutor Jose Domingo Perezafter the Constitutional Court (TC) ordered to annul the accusation against him for the alleged illegal financing of his 2011 and 2016 campaigns.
“I am not (going to report it), I have made this decision personally. The political party is going to evaluate it, and the more than 40 defendants who have gone through this ordeal have every right to do so,” he declared in a press conference held hours after the ruling was announced.
Asked about the possible impact that the highest court’s resolution could have on other similar processes, Fujimori He stressed that the continuity or decline of other cases will depend on “the responsibility of the corresponding prosecutor who would have used justice for political persecution.”
He indicated that the judicial process against him was full of irregularities, such as “unjustified preventive detentions, leaks intended to generate a media spectacle, and raids without legal basis.”
“But here we are, without resentment and with our heads held high. We believe in due process and not in a political lynching. Because we believe in Peru and not in hatred. These words do not seek redress for me. I am a politician. And as a politician I know very well what I face and the risks I run. My father is an example of this. He suffered an unjust prison, and I had the same,” she said.
The decision of the TC declared a lawsuit filed by the defense of the daughter and political heir of former dictator Alberto Fujimori (1990-2000) founded and ordered that this process, known as the ‘cocktails case’, be archived.
Fujimori’s lawyer, Giulliana Loza, had requested that the judicial resolutions linked to the process involving her client be declared null and void for the crimes of money laundering, criminal organization, false declaration and generic falsehood, as well as “all preceding acts” followed since the beginning of the preliminary investigations, in 2017.
Loza argued that before November 2016, it was not considered that receiving money to finance a political campaign could imply a crime of money laundering and that the Prosecutor’s Office added new elements to the case in October 2018 “without respecting the right to defense.”
In that sense, the decision of the TC, which was made with the vote of five of the seven members of the court on October 2, declared their claim “founded.” “We are not declaring the innocence or guilt of the beneficiary, but rather confirming the infeasibility of continuing with an accusation that lacks legal basis and is clearly contrary to what is established in the Constitution,” the resolution clarified.
In the final part of his press conference, Fujimori stated that contributions to his campaigns came from “large prestigious Peruvian businessmen,” not from the construction company. Brazilian Odebrecht.
“We regret that justice has been used to try to persecute and they continue to do so. (…) Now that we face another electoral process, the dissolution of the party was requested. What we hope is that the institutions, the Public Ministry, the Judiciary, those who administer justice, do the same and not looking at political colors as they have done until now,” he said.
