LIMA -- The prosecutor Germán Juárez Atoche warned against the risk of Peru’s former President Humala and his wife Ms Heredia fleeing the country, requesting a new prohibition against international travel for the couple, judicial sources said Tuesday.

 The Peruvian prosecutor Mr Juárez Atoche requested a new prohibition against international travel Monday for the former President and first lady Ollanta Humala and Nadine Heredia, both currently under investigation in their native Peru for alleged money laundering during Ollanta Humala’s presidential campaigns.

 The ex-first lady of this South American country Nadine Heredia was recently offered a post by FAO director general José Graziano da Silva in Geneva as head of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization’s liaison office, with critics saying that this was an attempt at giving Nadine a ‘legitimate’ reason to leave Peru and granting her diplomatic immunity.

 Juarez argued before the judicial authorities that the couple posed a genuine flight risk and provided documents from public records showing that the couple had granted guardian rights for their children to Heredia’s cousin Rosa Heredia so that she would be able to leave the country with them unaccompanied by one or both parents, Peruvian daily El Comercio reports.

 Nadine also granted rights to her husband “so that he can travel with my said underage children or with the person that he chooses, inside as well as outside of the country without any limitation, giving him the widest-ranging powers so that he can sign any necessary document in my name with no restriction of any kind,” as one document records -- the same powers were granted to her cousin.

 These documents date back to Nov. 22, 2016, presented before the Lima notary Carlos Antonio Herrera, then filed with the public records Dec. 19, two days before the former first lady flew to Rome to undergo training for her new FAO post.

 “A strong possibility exists that the defendant Ollanta Humala and his wife Nadine Heredia could flee the country,” said the prosecutor to the Judge Richard Concepción Carhuancho in charge of the case, warning of the importance of “impeding this risk of flight.”

 A decision from judicial authorities is expected to be made by the end of the day Tuesday about whether Nadine Heredia will have to obtain a judicial order to be allowed to leave Peru each time, in addition to having to return every month to sign a biometric register.

 nkd