Mutiny in Peru the first charges
2022.12.08 11:52
Mutiny in Peru the first charges
Budrigannews.com – As his replacement holds meetings at the presidential palace following a day of high drama that shocked the region, Peru’s ousted former president faces a court hearing on Thursday regarding his arrest and is also being investigated for rebellion.
After Pedro Castillo’s earlier attempt to dissolve Congress and rule by decree was thwarted, lawmakers in Congress overwhelmingly voted to remove the deeply unpopular leader on Wednesday. This resulted in Pedro Castillo’s swift fall from power.
Prosecutors claim that Castillo was taken into custody on Wednesday on criminal charges of “rebellion and conspiracy” at the same time that he was facing separate allegations of corruption.
The preliminary hearing on Thursday is expected to discuss the Attorney General’s Office’s investigation into allegations that he orchestrated a rebellion and the legality of his arrest.
At the hearing, Castillo lawyer Victor Perez rejected the rebellion charge, claiming that such an act implies the use of weapons and violence, which, according to Perez, never occurred.
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The former president was invited to speak at the hearing via teleconference, but he declined the request.
Dina Boluarte, Castillo’s vice president, was sworn in as the new president of the South American nation, becoming the first woman to do so. This marked the end of the frantic sequence of events.
The 53-year-old leftist Castillo’s 17-month term was marked by unprecedented senior official turnover and multiple corruption scandals that he dismissed as politically motivated attempts to undermine his government by conservative enemies in the opposition-controlled Congress.
Castillo is being held in a police jail in the capital Lima where another previous president, Alberto Fujimori, is likewise being held, a legal source told Reuters from the beginning Thursday.
There are high hopes that Boluarte, 60, will select a unity government to lead the world’s second-largest producer and begin naming a new cabinet in the coming days.
Boluarte made a few brief remarks to reporters at the presidential palace on Thursday morning. She said that calling early elections might be “democratically respectable,” but that she wants to have more discussions first.
