Peru’s President Pedro Castillo swears in new Interior Minister Willy Arturo. Peruvian President Pedro Castillo this Tuesday sworn in his seventh interior minister in a year, Willy Huerta Olivas, replacing Mariano Gonzáles, who resigned after two weeks in office. POLITICS SOUTH AMERICA PERU LATIN AMERICA INTERNATIONAL PRESIDENCY OF PERÚ PRESIDENCY OF PERU (Europa Press)
Peru’s Attorney General Patricia Benavides on Thursday launched a new investigation into Pedro Castillo for the alleged crime of concealment. It came two days after the president sacked Interior Minister Mariano Gonzales, and he attributed the sacking to the president’s uneasiness about the creation of a special police force. The unit had been requested by prosecutors investigating the corruption of the head of state and his entourage. In addition, another probe into influence was reopened this Friday, which former Attorney General Zoraida Ávalos opened in January but stayed on hold to allow proceedings to continue when Castillo leaves office.
Gonzales has told the press, the attorney general and the Congressional Oversight Commission that his firing means the new police team will be assembled at the request of Marita Barreto, who heads the so-called special team of prosecutors against the corruption of power, which has been in for a few weeks operation.
The probe into interference, which reopened this Friday, stems from the alleged intervention of the head of state, who is serving a year in office on Thursday, leading the state-owned oil company to choose Heaven Petroleum Operators last year when it bought biodiesel for 74 million dollars. This investigation comes on top of two others launched by former attorneys general Ávalos and Pablo Sánchez since Benavides took office earlier this month. Ávalos was the first prosecutor in the country to open an investigation in the history of the State Department against an incumbent president for crimes committed during his tenure – Martín Vizcarra, in 2020 – and these procedures, interpreted in accordance with the Constitution, would have to be carried out as soon as he leaves office. Instead, in May, Sánchez began actively investigating Castillo over the seriousness of the criminal organization’s allegations within the state apparatus.
Castillo, the former secretary general of the government palace, two of the president’s nephews and the former transport minister Juan Silva are being investigated for criminal organization, influence influence and aggravated collusion in the bid for a multi-million dollar public works project Amazonas. In the case known as Puente Tarata, his relatives – one of them a refugee – worked with stakeholders from a construction consortium and with Silva. Former Secretary of the Bureau. Bruno Pacheco and Silva have also been on the run for more than two months. The two stakeholders act as informants before the public prosecutor’s office.
The Peruvian president’s other investigation concerns the alleged crime of interference in the 2021 military promotions. Although Gonzales has indicated that the team of colonels assembled on Monday must search for the fugitives from the Puente Tarata case, prosecutors Barreto have also subpoenaed for others big tasks: “highly complex investigations in the fight against corruption and organized crime,” says the document with which he applied for the formation of the specialist department on Saturday.
The special police investigation and judicial support team is led by Colonel Harvey Colchado, who previously headed the organized crime facility that arrested politicians in the Odebrecht case and corrupt judges investigated in the White Necks file – the mafia in the judicial system. In addition, in 2012 he was part of the patrol that arrested the leader of an armed column of drug terrorists, “Comrade Artemio”, Florindo Flores Hala in the Amazon.
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investigations at risk
On Tuesday evening, the president announced on Twitter that he accepted Gonzales’ resignation and would appoint a successor in minutes: the seventh interior secretary in a year. Shortly after the swearing-in of a retired attorney and police officer, Willy Huerta, the deposed officer toured television and radio stations to denounce that his departure was a sign of the President’s obstruction of justice, as he intended to prevent discovery of the Refugees from the Puente Tarata case.
On Thursday, Gonzales told the Congressional Oversight Commission that the president called him around 8:30 p.m. Tuesday and that after that dialogue, he decided to denounce the obstruction of justice. “It’s a call where he obviously claimed me for making decisions without consultation: a very short call that lasted a minute and a half. I expressed the need for an explanation and told him that it was best to clarify the facts. The document says, “Gather all intelligence teams to find the fugitives,” and a few minutes later sends a tweet thanking me for the services rendered and stopping the team from working,” he described.
The former minister said he was outraged that the decisions he had made had been called into question: not just the formation of the team demanded by prosecutor Barreto, but – days before – the change in the intelligence chief of the National Police. “Obviously they were [medidas] necessary to run the sector, both for the fight against insecurity and for the search for refugees, it is important to have an adequate intelligence system in place,” he told parliamentarians. “The main concern is that when a ministerial decision puts in place a special team with four intelligence components to have the most qualified officers work on finding the fugitives, the abrupt decision is made to leave me and not put this into operation. decision,” he added.
Gonzales also pointed out in Parliament that the evidence he needs to get from prosecutors to investigate the president is the tape of Tuesday’s phone call. In the executive branch, the cabinet rejected Gonzales’ allegations. Prime Minister Aníbal Torres assured at a press conference on Wednesday that the sacked man only attended the Council of Ministers twice and on one of those occasions left the session early and did not present a plan to combat citizen insecurity, which they commissioned.
When the sector’s new minister was asked by the press if he would keep the specialized group of police officers, Huerta replied that he would speak to the team and suggested adding another member. However, legal and investigative journalists have warned that leaks could occur when a mole agent arrives to brief those under investigation on the investigation’s steps.
Castillo will celebrate a year in power next Thursday, the 28th, and at least two of the seven interior ministers he appointed have reported upon leaving office that he has sought to place trusted officials in the sector to discuss the Affected members of the police force to be informed of their entourage, investigated or wanted by the courts. The country teacher came into office as a guest of a left-wing political formation, which he had to resign last month due to disagreements with the party founder. He faced two congressional votes to remove him and has changed more than 50 ministers in his government so far. According to a poll by Ipsos Peru, its support hit its lowest point in July at 20%.
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