Last week, an unrepentant ex-president Alejandro Toledo emerged back into the limelight from the shadows where he has lurked ever since the Peruvian authorities launched extradition proceedings against him at the beginning of February.

Toledo is accused of receiving US$20 million in bribes from Odebrecht. He is also wanted in Peru over his involvement in the Ecoteva scandal, for which a second extradition demand has been issued to the US authorities. The latter appear in no hurry to hand over Toledo for trial.

Toledo first appeared in a conference panel in the United States organised by an UN agency. He subsequently gave interviews to Efe (the Spanish news agency) and CNN. These were due to be released in full on 28 May.

In the Efe interview, he once again repeated the argument that he would not receive a fair trial in Peru where the judiciary, he said, was still stacked with Fujimori sympathisers who wanted to wreak revenge over his role in government (2001-06).

He even went so far as to say that Keiko Fujimori wants him out of the way so as not to prejudice her presidential ambitions for 2021. “Today I am a persecuted politician and they want me to disappear out of the frame so that I do not impede the next election of Keiko Fujimori”, he confidently told Efe.

Toledo seems to want to present himself as the victim of a political persecution, in spite of the very serious allegations against him.