The Peruvian Prosecutor’s Office has opened a new investigation into the country’s president, Dina Boluartein relation to an alleged meeting with the former State Prosecutor, Patricia Benavides, which would have led to the commission of a crime of bribery by the president.
After two weeks of preliminary procedures, Boluarte has been called to give a statement on October 9 for an alleged request that Benavides had made to her not to dismiss the then commander general of the National Police of Peru (PNP), Raúl Alfaro. A demand that the president would have ignored, replacing Alfaro with Jorge Luis Angulo.
The Public Ministry says that there is improper passive bribery because prosecutor Benavides asked my client not to dismiss General Alfaro. However, the president does not echo any demands,” explained Boluarte’s lawyer, Juan Carlos Portugal, in statements reported by the newspaper ‘El Comercio’.
In this regard, Portugal has asserted that “the meeting existed and is proven.” “But the consequence is that the president did not do what the former prosecutor of the Nation supposedly told her and her reaction was to denounce my client for the crime of genocide,” he added.
The Government of Peru announced in March 2023 the dismissal of Raúl Alfaro as general commander of the National Police after revealing alleged links with Jorge Hernández, alias ‘El Español’, investigated for leading an alleged espionage plot headed by former president Pedro Castillo.
In this context, the Executive considered that the commander general was immersed in a situation of “conflict of interest” that made the performance of his duties at the head of the Peruvian security forces “incompatible.”
Alvarado’s dismissal came just one day after the Government of Dina Boluarte announced the replacement of eight other generals of the Police for their management of the citizen protests that, for several months, had been sweeping the country seeking the resignation of the president and the calling of new elections.
