The Human Rights and Counterterrorism Prosecutor’s Office, headed by provincial prosecutor Marita Barreto Rivera, formalized a preparatory investigation directed against the former president Ollanta Humala and four other former soldiers for alleged crimes of aggravated homicide and forced disappearance in the framework of the Madre Mía case.
Those involved are Tobías Huaringa (alias ‘Huaringa’), Nicanor Guerra (alias ‘Rambo’), Amílcar Gómez (alias ‘Chicho’) and Russel Vela (alias ‘Livio’), who were under the command of Humala (alias ‘Capitán Carlos’), who served since June 1992 as chief of the Countersubversive Battalion 313, at the Madre Mía military base.
According to the fiscal provision, identified as No. 22 and issued on September 24, the investigation points to the murder of Edgardo Isla Pérez and Némer Acuña Silva, as well as the disappearance of Luis Alberto Izaguirre Prieto, Nelson Hoyos Sagástegui, Hermes Estela Vásquez and Yandel Leandro Zúñiga. All events are investigated under the framework of possible crimes against humanity.
🚨 #ProsecutorAct | The Human Rights Prosecutor’s Office formalizes a preparatory investigation into the Madre Mía case against Ollanta Humala and former members of the Army, for the crimes of qualified homicide (extrajudicial executions) and forced disappearance.
✅ The First Prosecutor’s Office… pic.twitter.com/lw0mQvZXPc
— Public Ministry (@FiscaliaPeru) November 11, 2025
The judge in charge of the case, Jorge Chávez Tamariz, declared the investigation “complex” and granted a period of eight months for its development, which will end on May 24, 2026. Likewise, the registration of those investigated in the National Registry of those prosecuted for the crime of forced disappearance was ordered.
This new boost to the case revives a file that had been archived in 2009 by the Supreme Court of Justice, when it was estimated that there were insufficient merits for an oral trial. With this formalization, the Prosecutor’s Office launches a critical stage to clarify events that occurred more than three decades ago at the Madre Mía military base, in Alto Huallaga.
Madre Mía has been one of the main cases reported and investigated since 2017 by Oscar Quispe, journalist and current head of the Investigation Unit of Peru21. That year, the late journalist Jaime Chincha’s program on Willax reported the exhumation of the first body linked to this case.
This is an investigation that we began with Jaime Chincha in 2017. Since then, journalistic perseverance led us to gather new testimonies and meet more victims of ‘Captain Carlos’ in Madre Mía.
Years later the work bears fruit https://t.co/IH6wec4Mly
— Oscar Quispe (@Oscarqugo) November 11, 2025
HUMALA IN PRISON
Humala is currently serving a 15-year prison sentence for the crime of money laundering, which makes this new investigation an extension of his procedural situation that could add another dimension of criminal responsibility.
The Prosecutor’s Office reported that it will continue with procedures such as collecting testimonies, expert opinions and documentary analysis, while evaluating whether it will request additional coercive measures.
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