The prosecutor of the Nation and her closest subordinates have shouted from the rooftops –on repeated opportunities– that their independence is more than assured. Unfortunately, the facts do not confirm such a claim. More than 48 hours have passed since the revelation of the Fourth Estate in which the existence of a clandestine office used by the president is recorded in images, and the Public Ministry continues to allow a fundamental time for the investigation to pass, but very opportune for those involved.
Eight years ago, early on November 13, 2013, a report was published in the newspaper El Comercio that revealed that the houses of the ex-operator of Vladimiro Montesinos, Oscar Lopez Meneses, they enjoyed an illegal and abundant police protection. Faced with pressure from the press, allowing a day to pass, on November 14, a prosecutor from the anti-corruption office raided the homes of the person in question. At that time, the Public Ministry made an effort to be independent from political power. Today, in 2021, no one is hiding anymore.
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Neither the prosecutor of the Nation, Zoraida Ávalos, nor her superior prosecutor coordinating the anticorruption system, Omar Tello, have lifted a finger for their subordinates to intervene the house of the Sarratea passage in Breña, where suspicious meetings and illegal and a character has even been seen carrying a strangely plump purse.
In June an event as serious as the one we are witnessing occurred. Then Peru21 denounced that the coordinating prosecutor Omar Tello did not pay all the necessary attention to an operation that aimed to capture the criminal organization Los Dinámicos del Centro, directly involved in the Peru Libre party, which, at that time, was contesting the second round . The investigation was carried out two weeks later, when those investigated already knew what would happen to them. Time was in charge of supporting the report of this newspaper, because it is December and the leaders are still at large.
A few weeks ago, again, the suspicious actions of the Public Ministry under Castillo’s hat. A prosecutor from the anti-corruption system led by Tello visited the Government Palace to question the secretary general of the presidency, Bruno Pacheco. He found $ 20,000 in one of the bathrooms, but did not seize the money. Two days after the diligence, the coordinating prosecutor, Tello, offered in the media details of the registration in the office of the Secretary of the Presidential Office. He said that Bruno Pacheco did not give his cell phone to the prosecutors because he was not carrying it at the time – an unacceptable pretext because of the implausibility – but he forgot to comment on the twenty thousand dollars found near the toilet. The scandal jumped the next day thanks to the fact that an honest prosecutor, outraged by Tello’s serious omission in his account, took a photograph of the fiscal record that contained the information of the money found and leaked it.
President Castillo has surrounded himself with two former prosecutors, Ministers Avelino Guillén and Juan Carrasco. Are they in charge of calling their contacts at the Prosecutor’s Office to numb their authority? The applause that both men, once in law, offered on Monday night to a president who was lying in front of the whole country about his true address calls for suspicion.
:quality(75)/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/elcomercio/TSBTCJ3NVFGI3CXN6NTOWY7QWE.jpg "Pedro Castillo: The silence of the Public Prosecutor's Office raises serious doubts")
Congressman Alejandro Aguinaga (Popular Force) maintains that the Attorney General’s Office should have already ordered the search of the Breña property.
His claim was joined by Congressman Alejandro Muñante (Popular Renewal), who asked Zoraida Ávalos to proceed to initiate an investigation into the meetings of President Pedro Castillo in Breña because “it constitutes a flagrant violation of current legal provisions,” he said.
KEEP IN MIND
- “The Office of the Prosecutor, the Comptroller’s Office and the Office of the Attorney General must act according to their legal and constitutional powers to clarify facts,” said Walter Gutiérrez, ombudsman.
- The third vice president of Congress, Patricia Chirinos, sent a letter to Zoraida Ávalos to initiate an ex officio investigation, since the Transparency Law would be in breach.
