Peru: Castillo intended to seek asylum in Mexico – Held in same prison as Fujimori

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“He told me he was on his way to the embassy, ​​but they must have already tapped his phone,” commented López Obrador

Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador revealed today that Peru’s ousted president Pedro Castillo she called him Wednesday night and told him she would seek asylum from the Mexican authorities.

Castillo, however, was unable to reach the Mexican embassy in Lima.

He told me he was on his way to the embassy, ​​but surely they had already tapped his phone“, López Obrador commented to the journalists.

He added that he had told Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard to open the gates of the embassy for Castillo.

Parliament deposed Castillo shortly after he tried to dissolve Congress, and the country’s vice president until recently, Dina Boluarte, was sworn in as the new head of state.

The representative of the State Department “saluted” today “Peru’s institutions and political authorities that ensured democratic stability.” The US will continue to support Peru and the government of national unity that Bolluarte has promised to form, he added.

The US categorically condemns any act of undermining the democratic order“, he emphasized.

Castillo was arrested last night and is being held in a police prison in Lima, the same one where another former president, Alberto Fujimori, is being held, a police source told Reuters.

Castillo was ousted after trying to dissolve Congress in an attempt to stay in power, but his action backfired after former allies and government ministers turned against him.

In the footage broadcast on television, Castillo can be seen arriving at night by helicopter, his hands tied and hidden under a blanket, at the headquarters of the Special Operations Service (Diroes), east of the capital.

The Reuters source said the 53-year-old former president is being held there, along with Fujimori, who ruled Peru with an iron fist between 1990-2000 and is currently serving a 25-year prison sentence for human rights abuses and corruption.

Fujimori, 84, is the only condemned prisoner in a compound built especially for him in Diroes, before his extradition from Chile in 2007.

According to the Institute of National Prisons (INRE), he has at his disposal a cell with a bedroom, a toilet, an office and access to a yard, where he tends the garden.

Fujimori was able to dissolve Congress in 1992, as he had the support of the armed forces and police, at a time when the country was battling Maoist rebels and facing a severe economic crisis.

After the international outcry that erupted, he organized parliamentary elections and in 1993 promoted a new Constitution that favored a market economy.

Unlike Fujimori, Castillo lost the support of the government and the armed forces when he threatened to dissolve Congress.

A judicial source told Reuters that although the two former presidents are in the same compound, they are not being held together. Castillo is in a police station cell while Fujimori’s “gang” is being monitored by the INPE.

Former president Hollande Umala was also detained at the Diroes headquarters from July 2017 to April 2018, when a corruption investigation against him was underway.

RES-EMP

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