Peruvian Panel Finds President Guilty

LIMA, Peru â€”  A congressional panel Tuesday found Peru’s president guilty of electoral fraud, but lawmakers were split over how to penalize him and critics dismissed the report as irrelevant.

Three of the five commission members looking into charges against President Alejandro Toledo approved the 335-page document after months of investigations.

It must go before the full Congress for approval before any action can be taken.

The charge that Toledo helped fake signatures to register his party for the 2000 election was once the biggest scandal in his presidency. But divisions within the commission and contradictory statements by witnesses stripped it of credibility.

Toledo, who denies the allegations, permitted lawmakers to question him but refused to let them record his comments or to sign a written transcript of his testimony.

The report charges 40 people with complicity in the signature scandal, including Toledo’s sister, Margarita, who is under house arrest.

But it does not recommend any specific punishment for Toledo, who has an approval rating of just 8%, recent polls show.

Marciel Ayaypoma, a commission member from Toledo’s Peru Posible party, said the case should be dropped.

The commission’s president, opposition lawmaker Edgar Villanueva, called on Congress to hold a vote on whether to fire Toledo. Xavier Barron, also of the opposition, said the president should be banned from politics for 10 years.