Peru says ex-president has sought asylum in Uruguay

FILE - In this June 17, 2011 file photo, Peru's outgoing President Alan Garcia waves to the press during a meeting with Peru's President-elect Ollanta Humala at the government palace in Lima, Peru. Peru’s government said in a Nov. 18, 2018 statement that the former president is seeking asylum in Uruguay days after a prosecutor sought to retain his passport as part of a corruption probe. (AP Photo/Marcelo Luna, File)

LIMA, Peru – Former Peruvian President Alan Garcia has sought asylum in Uruguay's diplomatic mission hours after a judge retained his passport as part of a corruption probe, Peru's foreign ministry announced Sunday.

The ministry said it was informed by Uruguay's ambassador that Garcia entered his residence Saturday night seeking protection. It vowed to provide unspecified information to Uruguay as it evaluates Garcia's request.

Late Saturday, a judge in Lima granted prosecutors' request that Garcia be banned from leaving Peru for 18 months as investigators probe allegations he received illegal payment from Brazilian construction giant Odebrecht.

Odebrecht is at the center of Latin America's biggest corruption scandal after admitting in a 2016 plea agreement with the U.S. Justice Department that it paid corrupt officials across Latin America nearly $800 million in exchange for major infrastructure contracts.

The scandal has led to the jailing of numerous senior politicians across the region, especially in Brazil and Peru, where former President Pedro Pablo Kucyznski was forced to resign for hiding his past work as a consultant to Odebrecht and Garcia as well as two other former presidents, Ollanta Humala and Alejandro Toledo, are under investigation for allegedly taking illegal payments.

Garcia, who splits his time between Madrid and Peru, downplayed the threat of arrest when he arrived home on Thursday.

"For me it's not a punishment to be confined 18 months to my homeland," he said on Twitter while denying that he had ever received money from Odebrecht.

President Martin Vizcarra, who has made tackling corruption the focus of his administration since taking over from Kuczynski, rejected Garcia's claims the case against him was built on false testimony.

"Political persecution doesn't exist in Peru, and all of us Peruvians must obey justice, without exceptions," he wrote on Twitter shortly after news of Garcia's asylum request.

Garcia is under investigation for bribes allegedly paid during the construction of Lima's metro during his 2006-2011 government.

Garcia, 69, was a populist firebrand whose erratic first presidency in the 1980s was marked by hyperinflation, rampant corruption and the rise of the Shining Path guerrilla movement.

When he returned to power two decades later he ran a more conservative government, helping usher in a commodities-led investment boom in which Odebrecht played a major supporting role.

This is the second time Garcia has sought to flee to another country amid corruption charges. Following the end of his first government he spent nine years in exile in neighboring Colombia and then France after his successor, Alberto Fujimori, raided his house and reopened a corruption probe.