LIMA -- The former Peruvian first lady Heredia, appointed head of the FAO’s liaison office despite legal investigations, spent the New Year in Peru awaiting a decision from judicial authorities to allow her return to work, Peruvian newspaper El Correo said Tuesday.

 The ex-first lady of Peru Nadine Heredia is being forced to spend New Year and the Epiphany in her native Peru, having been called back from her trip to Europe to assume her role at the Food and Agriculture Organization’s liaison office in Geneva by the judge in charge of her alleged money laundering case, Richard Concepción Carhuancho.

 Nadine arrived back in Lima Dec. 1, and assisted a hearing later that month, in which she refused to answer the questions posed to her.

 She is still awaiting a decision from the Peruvian judicial authorities as to whether to allow her to return to her role as head of the FAO’s liaison office in Switzerland, or be sent to jail pending indictment for money laundering as the prosecutor Germán Juárez requested.

 nkd