2023-06-22 05:01:00
From Lima
The judicial process against former President Pedro Castillo for the failed attempt to close Congress last December has led one of the most important ministers of his government to jail. This Wednesday, with strong police custody and extensive media coverage, the last head of Castillo’s ministerial cabinet, lawyer Betssy Chávez, arrived in Lima to be imprisoned. She had been detained Tuesday afternoon at her home in the city of Tacna, some 1,200 kilometers south of Lima, on the border with Chile. Like Castillo, she is charged with rebellion for the attempt to unconstitutionally shut down the right-wing-controlled Congress that sought to overthrow the government, a move she failed to carry out. Chávez maintains her support for Castillo, but she denies having participated in the decision to close Congress.
The accused
Three other Castillo ministers, Aníbal Torres, who was head of Justice and head of the ministerial cabinet, Willy Huerta, of the Interior, and Roberto Sánchez, of Foreign Trade and Tourism, are also being prosecuted for this case. They face the process in freedom. Like Chávez, they deny their involvement in the decision to close Congress. Castillo is serving 18 months in pretrial detention accused of rebellion. The former president’s lawyers assure that the charge of rebellion is not sustained because there was no uprising in arms, a legal requirement to apply this criminal figure.
A court of the Supreme Court, made up of five magistrates, ordered preventive detention for 18 months for Chávez. The judges justified the decision by pointing out that there is a flight risk. Until his arrest, Chávez had been attending court summons for this case. This decision revokes a previous judicial ruling that had ruled out the risk of flight and had ordered that the former minister continue the judicial process in freedom.
Live broadcast
Minutes after the order for her arrest was made public, Chávez broadcast a live video from her home on her social networks in which she said she was waiting for the police to arrest her, which happened an hour later. “I am waiting for the police to come and go with them. I thought I’d go to the police, but if I go out they’ll say I’m running away. It is a complex moment, but you have to be brave. Those who believe that with this they will see me sad, depressed, crying, they are wrong, ”she said during that transmission that lasted a few minutes. She described her decision to impose preventive detention on him as “unfair and arbitrary.” In that message she promoted a book that she has written that will be published in the coming weeks and she asked to be detained in Tacna, where her parents and siblings also live.
The day after her arrest, Chávez was taken from Tacna to Lima in a police plane. In the capital, she toured police and judicial facilities this Wednesday, followed by television cameras. In the brief judicial hearing for recognition of identity, she reiterated before the judge her request to be taken to a prison in her native Tacna. “All my roots are in Tacna. Here (in Lima) I have no family,” she said. The judge replied that this decision will be made by the National Penitentiary Institute (INPE). At the close of this note, no decision had been made. Chávez was detained in an INPE jail.
Proximity with Castle
Betssy Chávez, 34, gained political notoriety when she was elected in 2021 as a congresswoman for Peru Libre (PL), the party with which Castillo became president. She later distanced herself from PL and was separated from the party, but she maintained a close relationship with Castillo. In October 2021, just over two months into the government, she was appointed Minister of Labor. In May 2022 she was censured by Congress and she had to leave the ministry. Censorship of her was backed by PL legislators. However, shortly after Castillo summoned her again for the ministerial cabinet. In August she was appointed Minister of Culture. She remained in that position until November 25, when she was promoted to head of the ministerial cabinet, replacing Aníbal Torres, who left the position in the midst of a political crisis. Days after she took office as chief of staff, the government fell after the failed attempt to shut down Congress. Chávez coordinated the televised message in which Castillo made that announcement. Accused of having participated in the attempt to shut down Congress, in March she was removed from her parliamentary seat, a decision that enabled her prosecution and arrest.
While attention was focused on Betssy Chávez, on Wednesday afternoon the right-wing majority in Congress approved a constitutional accusation against the supreme prosecutor in office and former prosecutor of the Nation, Zoraida Avalos, of recognized independence, and removed her from office, making it that consolidates the power in the Prosecutor’s Office of the current prosecutor of the Nation, Patricia Benavides, an ally of the right. Approved without solid arguments but with the strength of the votes -71 votes in favor, 15 against and 8 abstentions-, this decision is part of a right-wing offensive led by the Fujimorismo to capture the judicial and electoral bodies, with the aim of set to manipulate the trial that awaits Keiko Fujimori for money laundering and control the upcoming elections.
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