Lima Peru.- Former Peruvian President Pedro Castillo, imprisoned on accusations of rebellion, asked an appeals court on Wednesday for his release and denied having committed crimes when he tried to carry out a self-coup on December 7.
“I ask for the hatred to cease and I request my freedom for being a just right. I have never committed a crime of rebellion,” Castillo said during a virtual hearing.
Castillo’s defense requests that the preventive detention of 18 months that he is serving in a prison at a police base in Lima be revoked. The Permanent Criminal Chamber of the Supreme Court, led by Judge César San Martín, must resolve the request this Wednesday.
“Your Judge, I have not committed any crime of conspiracy, but the one who has conspired is Congress and other institutions with the purpose of putting together a plan for the fall of my Government through successive requests for vacancy and other tricks,” added the judge. Ex leader.
The former President sported a grown mustache and was accompanied by his lawyer.
Castillo, a rural teacher and leftist union leader, said he was incommunicado and asked the judge to grant him access to a telephone to contact his wife and two children, who left for asylum in Mexico last week.
The former President was constitutionally removed by Congress and is being held under legal conditions and without physical complications, according to the Ombudsman’s Office, which visited him a week ago along with a team from the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR).
Castillo, 53, is being held in the Barbadillo prison, within the headquarters of the Special Police Operations Directorate (Diroes) in the capital.
The former President is being investigated for the crime of rebellion and conspiracy for trying to close Congress, intervene in public powers and govern by decree. The maneuver had no institutional backing.
The Police detained him hours after his dismissal, when he was trying to get to the Mexican Embassy to request asylum. He assumed the Government his Vice President, Dina Boluarte.
Castillo’s fall sparked violent protests that left 22 dead and more than 600 injured in clashes with security forces. The demonstrators called for the resignation of Boluarte, the closure of Congress and the advancement of elections.
In an attempt to mitigate the crisis, Parliament approved a week ago to advance the general elections from 2026 to April 2024.
Congress approves motion for ‘AMLO’s meddling
The Congress of Peru approved this Wednesday a motion that allows rejecting the interference in the internal affairs of the country by the Mexican President, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, and the President of Colombia, Gustavo Petro.
With 61 votes in favor, the plenary approved the request that will allow them to publish a statement rejecting the statements of both heads of state.
