AP News, December 22nd, 2006
Former President Alejandro Toledo was formally charged with taking part in a scheme to forge signatures to register his political party in the late 1990s, court officials said Thursday.
Toledo, who left office in July, was dogged throughout much of his five-year term by accusations that he and his sister, Margarita Toledo, oversaw the systematic forging of names in 1997 and 1998 to make his Peru Possible party eligible for the 2000 elections.
He was charged Monday with illicit association to commit a crime and falsification of public documents, said a court spokesman, who said he was not authorized to be identified in the media by name.
Toledo has strongly denied the allegation. He was not immediately available for comment. Alejandro Tudela, his former justice minister and now one of his attorneys, told CPN radio that Toledo was in the United States.
Judge Carolina Lizarraga ordered Toledo to place $50,000 in an escrow account against his assets and to post bail of $16,000, the court spokesman said.
Toledo has spent much of his time abroad since leaving office, lecturing in U.S. universities and serving as an election monitor last month in Nicaragua with former President Jimmy Carter.
The forgery charge is punishable by a maximum 10-year sentence, while the illicit association charge carries a penalty of up to six years.
Toledo's sister was charged for the alleged forgeries, along with more than 30 others, in January 2005 and was placed under house arrest for eight months as part of the ongoing trial against her.
In May of last year, opposition lawmakers accused Toledo of a cover-up and made an unsuccessful attempt to suspend him from office and start impeachment proceedings.
