Peru’s Alan Garcia reports for questioning in corruption case

Former President Alan Garcia appeared before the Peruvian Attorney General’s Office on Thursday to answer questions about a series of bribes paid by Brazilian construction giant Odebrecht to win a lucrative public works contract during his 2006-2011 administration.

Garcia arrived in Lima on Thursday on a flight from Madrid, and immediately left from the airport to the AG Office without delivering any statements to the press.

Outside the AG Office, the former president was received by supporters who chanted his name as he arrived.

However, Garcia left an hour later saying that the hearing had been suspended.

“The hearing was inexplicably suspended for a second time. This is unfortunate because all speculations were answered on October 19,” the former president said via Twitter.

So far, the highest-ranking Garcia administration official implicated in the corruption case is former Deputy Communications Minister Jorge Cuba, who remains jailed pending trial for having received at least $8 million from Odebrecht in several Andorran bank accounts.

But Odebrecht executive Carlos Nostre told prosecutors that the company paid up to $24 million to win the contract to build Lima Metro’s Line 1, without denying that part of the money could have been delivered to Alan Garcia.

The Odebrecht case involves a series of bribes and illegal campaign contributions that the company admitted having paid between 2005 and 2014 to win lucrative public works contracts.

Other high-ranking Peruvian politicians involved in the case include former presidents Alejandro Toledo, Ollanta Humala and Pedro Pablo Kuczynski, as well as opposition leader Keiko Fujimori , who lost in the last two presidential elections and is currently under preventive detention.