The leftist president left the government palace on foot in the morning and walked about eight blocks raising a hand to greet pedestrians, accompanied by advisers and some thirty plainclothes escorts and uniformed police, AFP journalists observed.
“In order to clarify the allegations and speculations against me, today [viernes] I will go to the National Prosecutor’s Office in an act of transparency with the people and collaboration with the justice system“Pedro Castillo tweeted minutes before.
The president of Peru entered the prosecutor’s office a quarter of an hour later without making a statement to the press. Outside, a dozen opposition protesters were waiting for him, shouting slogans against him.
An hour and a half later, Pedro Castillo continued to testify before the prosecutor’s office, which is investigating him for alleged crimes of influence peddling, criminal organization and aggravated collusion for a cause that involves their political and family environment.
This is the investigation into the “Puente Tarata III” consortium, which seeks to determine if a former Minister of Transport, six legislators, a former Secretary General of the Presidency and two nephews of Castillo were part of an alleged criminal network headed by the president to grant a contract of public works.
Prosecutor Samuel Rojas summoned Castillo while cFour investigated from his environment are fugitives after a preventive detention order was issued against them. Police are offering rewards of between $4,000 and $13,300 for his arrest.
Legislation in Peru prevents a president from being prosecuted while he is in power, but does not advance the investigations against him, maintains the prosecution. The leftist ends his term on July 28, 2026.
Meanwhile, the Oversight and Comptrollership Commission of Congress, dominated by the opposition, agreed on Thursday to summon Pedro Castillo to appear on June 21 for the same case that the prosecution is investigating.
“Peruvian politics has become a police and judicial exerciseneither the substantive political issues nor the urgent problems” of the country are discussed, political analyst Hugo Otero told AFP.
“That is ignoring the problems that the people of Peru are experiencing, such as unemployment, poverty or inflation,” the highest in three decades, added Otero, a former adviser to the late President Alan García.
Castillo, a 52-year-old rural teacher, had announced on Sunday that he would attend the summons from prosecutor Rojas. “In 11 months they have not been able to find a clue that we have put our hand in to steal,” added the president, denying irregularities in his management.
The new summons establishes that the president will be able to choose the place where he will testify to the legislative commission.
In his 11 months in power, Pedro Castillo has been under constant siege from the radical sector of the opposition, which accuses him of alleged ineptitude and of being tainted by acts of corruption.
On April 8, Peru’s Congress, also controlled by the opposition, approved a merely symbolic motion calling on Castillo to resign, 10 days after the second attempt to remove him from office in a lightning impeachment trial failed, reaping only 55 of the 87 votes needed.
The motions of “presidential vacancy” have become a custom in Peru and caused the fall of the leaders Peter Paul Kuczynski (right) in 2018 and Martin Vizcarra (center) in 2020. Since December 2017, Congress has debated six such initiatives.
Source: Ambito
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