LIMA, April 28, 2019 (BSS/AFP) – Peru’s former president Pedro Pablo
Kuczynski, who is under arrest in connection with the Odebrecht corruption
scandal and has been hospitalized for heart problems, underwent emergency
surgery Saturday to install a pacemaker, his brother said.
“He has come out of a fairly long operation … the doctors are happy with
the results of the operation,” Miguel Kuczynski told reporters.
The 80-year-old former president was urgently hospitalized on April 16
suffering from high blood pressure, lawmaker Gilbert Violeta told RPP radio
at the time.
Hospital officials said Kuczynski was suffering from ventricular
tachycardia, a condition considered potentially life-threatening for someone
of his age.
The former head of state was arrested earlier this month and was being
held under preliminary detention, accused of money laundering.
He is one of four Peruvian ex-presidents embroiled in various corruption
scandals linked to Odebrecht, alongside Ollanta Humala, Alan Garcia and
Alejandro Toledo.
Garcia died in hospital on April 17 after shooting himself in the head as
police were about to arrest him over the graft investigation.
Kuczynski has been accused of passing laws to favor Odebrecht when he was
finance minister during Toledo’s government.
In 2018, he resigned from office over the Odebrecht scandal, the first
sitting president to do so.
Odebrecht has been accused of spreading some $788 million in bribe money
to a dozen countries over more than a decade to win big construction
contracts.