Lima, March 31 (teleSUR-RHC) Former Peruvian President Alan Garcia has joined the legal team to defend Venezuelan opposition leaders Antonio Ledezma and Leopoldo Lopez. However, critics cited accusations on Monday suggesting that — as a former two-term President of Peru — Garcia’s human rights based argument supporting Ledezma and Lopez is contradictory.

The accusations include corruption cases currently under investigation and human rights violations. Both defendants of Garcia, Ledezma and Lopez are currently arrested for inciting violence and attempting to cause a coup détat in Venezuela. The spouses of Antonio Ledezma and Leopoldo Lopez, Mitzy Capriles and Liliet Tintori respectively, visited Peru as part of an international tour attempting to gather support for their husbands.

During their visit they sought support from different right wing forces such as the APRA party led by Garcia. When the two wives visited the office of Garcia, they asked him to join the legal team. Capriles said the effort is going to include a “group of people, top figures, that will make the team for our political prisoners and [Alan García] said he would absolutely be part of it.”

Garcia is accused by a Congressional Commission that has investigated his government between 2006 and 2011 of illicit use of state funds in the construction of schools, sewage systems and water services and for interfering in the justice system liberating thousands of drug traffickers in exchange for fees allegedly starting at $10,000.

For the Institute of Legal Defense, the former president also has to respond for the massacre of Bagua. This massacre occurred in 2009 also during his second term in office. In a dispute between a development project and indigenous people from the area, 34 citizens died after the government ordered the police to attack protesters.