Peruvian President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski said he asked US President Donald Trump in a telephone call on Sunday to consider deporting the Andean country’s fugitive former president Alejandro Toledo.
Kuczynski’s government believes that Toledo, wanted in connection with a far-reaching graft probe, is in the US, but it said that efforts to capture him there have stalled on legal hurdles.
Kuczynski did not describe Trump’s response to his request in a statement or in a televised address he gave about the corruption probe that has ensnared Toledo, who governed Peru from 2001 to 2005 when Kuczynski was the Peruvian minister of finance and prime minister.
The White House also did not mention Toledo in a read-out of the conversation.
On Thursday last week, a Peruvian judge issued an international arrest warrant for Toledo, who has repeatedly denied allegations by prosecutors that he took US$20 million in bribes from Brazilian construction company Odebrecht.
The downfall of Toledo, once a celebrated anti-graft crusader and pro-democracy activist in Peru, is part of the rapidly-growing fallout of the biggest region-wide corruption scandal in Latin America.
However, the US wants Peru to provide more evidence of probable cause before ordering Toledo’s detention in the US, Peruvian Minister of the Interior Carlos Basombrio told reporters earlier on Sunday.
The dispute is threatening to strain tensions between the US and Peru, a traditional US ally in South America.
Trump said that the two leaders spoke to “reinforce the strong bilateral ties that exist between the United States and Peru,” the White House said.
Kuczynski said that both leaders exchanged their viewpoints on the US-Peru relationship and the “ample possibilities for deepening them on the back of agreement on topics of the defense of democratic principles and the fight against corruption.”
Trump also invited Kuczynski to visit the US, the Kuczynski’s statement said.
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