Keiko Fujimori denies Argentine consultant Cerimedo worked on her campaign

Keiko Fujimori says she has no personal or professional relationship with Fernando Cerimedo, the Argentine consultant detained in Bolivia over an alleged attempted femicide against his former partner.

Speaking to reporters in Peru’s Piura region, Fujimori also denied knowing him or communicating with him. Asked about Cerimedo’s visit to Lima on July 28, the day she took office, she said: “I don’t know what the visit was about. I may have greeted him, but I have no communication or relationship with him.”

The newspaper La República reported that Cerimedo traveled from Bolivia to Lima on July 27 and remained there through the inauguration. Other foreign consultants whom Fujimori has acknowledged as campaign collaborators, including Argentine Damián Valenzuela and Cuban Carlos Díaz Rosillo, also attended the ceremony.

Cerimedo’s former partner, Bolivian lawyer Nadia Beller, told the newspaper that he held meetings in Lima with a woman on Fujimori’s campaign team on the day of the inauguration. She said the connection had begun the previous year. Cerimedo remains in preventive detention in Santa Cruz over the alleged attack on Beller and a separate investigation into suspected illicit enrichment following money found during a search of his home.

The cases have also drawn attention to Cerimedo’s reported links to Bolivian President Rodrigo Paz. His critics, including former president Evo Morales and Vice President Edmand Lara, say Cerimedo served as Paz’s personal adviser. Cerimedo worked on Javier Milei’s 2023 presidential campaign in Argentina and has also been linked to Brazil’s investigation into the January 2023 coup attempt. He founded the outlet La Derecha Diario in 2021.

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I don’t know what the visit was about. I may have greeted him, but I have no communication or relationship with him.