Former Peruvian President Pedro Castillo has stated that he is “unfairly and arbitrarily detained” and has blamed the new head of state, Dina Boluarte, “for the ferocious attack on her compatriots” in the protests in recent days.
“I want to address the country to tell them that I am unfairly and arbitrarily detained, I am not for being a thief, a rapist, corrupt or a thug,” Castillo remarked when presenting his arguments at a hearing in which a court is reviewing the appeal to the preliminary arrest that was issued against him.
After hearing the arguments of the former president’s defense, the Prosecutor’s Office and the State Attorney’s Office, Supreme Judge César San MartÃn asked Castillo if he had “something to add.”
Image of Pedro Castillo escorted by the police in a police station in Lima, last Wednesday.
The ex-governor, who was connected virtually from the prison to which he was sent last Wednesday, has stated that he was going to his country to tell him that he is “totally grateful for his trust, effort, his fight and his involvement”. “I will never renounce, nor will I abandon, this popular cause that has brought me here”, he has maintained.
Castillo has also urged “the Armed Forces and the National Police to lay down their arms and stop killing this people thirsty for justice” and upon leaving the hearing, two of his lawyers have read a brief letter in which he blames President Dina Boluarte and her closest circle of the consequences of the social and political crisis facing the country.
For her part, Dina Boluarte also spoke on Tuesday and announced that she will meet with the Constitutional Commission of Congress to seek to “shorten the deadlines” for holding general elections in her country, which a few days ago proposed that they take place in April 2024.
At least seven dead in the wave of riots in the country
The protest demonstrations that broke out this Sunday against President Dina Boluarte and the Peruvian Congress reached their maximum level of violence this Monday with seven dead, a hundred police officers injured and the attack on two television channels in Lima.
Protesters take the Pan-American highway in the Northern Cone of Arequipa after Dina Boluarte’s announcement of her intention to advance elections.
The Ombudsman, Eliana Revollar, confirmed that the number of people who have lost their lives in just over 24 hours in clashes between the police and protesters calling for Boluarte’s resignation and the closure of Congress, which dismissed the president, has risen to seven. former president Pedro Castillo after announcing a self-coup.
“There have been two very unfortunate days with a balance of seven people dead (…) two of them minors and all from firearm projectiles,” he specified to the Epicentro TV channel.
López Obrador denies “interference” in Peru but asks to recognize Castillo
For his part, the Mexican president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, has rejected this Tuesday the accusations of “interference” in the current Government of Peru, but has asked to recognize the presidency of Pedro Castillo by arguing that he won the last elections.
President of Mexico, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, speaks during a press conference at the National Palace, in Mexico City.
“It is not interference, being there conducting nothing, our ambassador is doing his diplomatic work and it is Foreign Relations that is in charge of carrying out this process,” he declared at his daily press conference.
López Obrador has responded to the Peruvian Foreign Ministry, which last Friday summoned the Mexican ambassador in Lima, Pablo Monroy, to convey his rejection of the “expressions of the Mexican authorities” that “constitute interference in the internal affairs” of the Andean country .