Politics

Peru’s prosecutor’s office opens 6th investigation into president

Lima, Aug 11 (EFE).- The judicial labyrinth surrounding Peru’s President Pedro Castillo intensified Thursday with the prosecutor’s office opening of a sixth investigation against him.

The decision of Attorney General Patricia Benavides to open a new case against Castillo, 52, for alleged irregularities in bidding for works in his native region of Cajamarca came a day after his sister-in-law Yenifer Paredes, younger sibling of 49-year-old first lady Lilia Paredes, surrendered after a preliminary arrest warrant was issued against her.

The 26-year-old, whom Castillo refers to as a daughter and who lives with the couple, spent her first night under arrest Thursday and will continue to be detained for at least another nine days after a judge rejected her defense’s request to change her situation after she tested positive for Covid-19.

This is the fifth case linked to Castillo’s management and the third that starts from a presumption that he is the head of a corrupt organization that allegedly acts within the executive.

The head of state, entrenched in Government Palace, on Thursday reiterated on Twitter that this week’s developments are a “media show, to make believe that my family is involved in acts of corruption. More than a year has passed and there is no evidence, only assumptions.”

He claims the events are part of a coup operation, presumably orchestrated by those who tried to take power from him through baseless accusations of electoral fraud when he won the June 2021 election.

After the authorities tried to arrest Paredes at Castillo’s private residence on Tuesday, Castillo claimed to be the target of a “conspiracy between Congress, the attorney general’s office and a sector of the press to destabilize the democratic order” and “take power illegally.” EFE

csr/tw

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