Alejandro Toledo and Eliane Karp, in a November 2016 file photo. Europa Press/Contacto/El Comercio (Europa Press/Contacto/El Comerci)
When Alejandro Toledo was extradited to Peru on Sunday April 23 after a long court case, one question ran through newsrooms: what would be the fate of Eliane Karp, the Belgian anthropologist who was the country’s first lady between 2001 and 2006 was? ? ? Although Karp, who was prominent in that five-year period, was not involved in the Odebrecht case, in which her husband allegedly received a $35 million bribe to favor the Brazilian construction company in winning the Interoceanic highway, she is accused of alleged money laundering offenses in the Ecoteva case. Since 2017, an 18-month preventive detention order has weighed on her, since 2019 an application for a prison sentence of 16 years and eight months.
This morning, Peru woke up to a rumor that was confirmed as the hours went by: Eliane Karp traveled Tuesday night on a scheduled flight from San Francisco, where she had lived for decades, to Tel Aviv, Israel’s second largest city. It was a fear various lawyers and political analysts have warned about in recent weeks. Rafael Vela, the prosecutor responsible, indicated that Karp had two options to evade Peruvian justice: to go to Belgium, his country of origin, or to Israel, where he has Jewish ancestry on his father’s side. Peru has no extradition treaty with Israel. Karp was well aware of this, and since he had no obstacles in leaving the United States, he chose the second option. This was confirmed this afternoon by Prime Minister Alberto Otárola: “The United States Department of Justice has informed the Peruvian Embassy that she has taken a flight to Israel (…) Yes, the lady has indeed landed in that country.” About the State Department we are pursuing the case,” he said briefly.
Last week, Roberto Su, Alejandro Toledo’s lawyer, denied the predictable: “She has Belgian and Israeli nationality, but at no time did she tell me that she will flee or leave (…) Eliane ( Karp) already has her passport and wants to come to Peru,” he said. However, Su also made it clear that Karp would not return to Peru until the preventive detention order was lifted, a move his client said was “unjust” as it was in retaliation for being Toledo’s wife.
In early 2013 it was discovered that Eva Fernenburg, mother of Eliane Karp and mother-in-law of Toledo, had bought luxury properties through her company Ecoteva Consulting Group. According to the tax thesis, it is an offshore company based in Costa Rica, through which the former presidential couple is said to have tried to cover up the multi-million dollar bribes that they would have received from Brazilian construction companies. When questioned on the subject, the former leader of the political group Perú Posible always said it was “compensation that his mother-in-law received for being a victim of the Holocaust,” but he never managed to prove that he was on the list of compensated persons.
Days after Toledo returned to the country she ruled in the early 2000s, Eliane Karp regained her passport by order of Northern California Judge Thomas S. Hixson, who had also ordered the return of the bail she paid while her husband was on probation Year 2019. It’s about a million dollars, half of it was paid in cash and the other with the security of a property. The former first lady received $175,000 plus interest.
Recently, the State Department announced that it had sent all the necessary documents to the United States to support Karp’s extradition request, but that everything was in their hands. “The document was presented a long time ago (December 2021), we ask for your qualification and answer, but we remain at the expense of what the American legislation and its authorities refer to,” said Edgar Rebaza, head of the Office for International Judicial Cooperation and deliveries. .
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