The new head of the Council of Ministers, Hannibal Torres, will be in charge of leading the fourth Ministerial Cabinet of the government of Pedro Castillo. Torres Vásquez was part of the Executive from the beginning as Minister of Justice and Human Rights, and gave different statements that were questioned.
“Silly little boy”
When he was still a member of the technical team of the Peru Libre political party, in July 2021, Aníbal Torres had a strong argument with the television host and former candidate for Congress Mario Bryce.
At that time, the now Prime Minister was consulted for his statements that possibly “Blood will be shed in the country” for an alleged coup attempt.
“You are not going to stun me, you are talking to people. It is not that you are going to speak barbarity and a half because you have the means, deceiving people and I am going to listen to you, no silly little boy, speak with the truth and the law. You are not the law, the judges are not going to do what you are saying or what your candidate or Montoya is saying. Here in Peru there is a legal system”he expressed.
Antauro Humala
Last February 5, the then Minister of Justice responded ironically to the press when he was asked about an alleged operation to free Antauro Humala.
“Since you can’t by law, I’m going to make you jump a wall. At that time I am going to make all the Police go to lunch and I am going to put a car that has a speed of about 300 kilometers per hour so that they can leave, ” he asserted.
Opposition in Congress
From the beginning of his administration, Aníbal Torres always defended the Government of Pedro Castillo from the criticism that came from different sectors of Congress.
“The vacancy promoted by some congressmen, their financiers and allied press lacks any foundation. They use the vacancy as a political trial, to repeat the 2020 coup and its well-known consequences. The coup plotters yearn to impose a totalitarian government”, he wrote on Twitter in December 2021.
Against prosecutor Norah Córdova
In addition, the prime minister was against the fact that the anti-corruption prosecutor Norah Córdova continues to be in charge of the proceedings in the Petroperú case, an investigation into alleged interference by the Government in said state company in order to favor the company Heaven Petroleum Operators.
“How can a prosecutor, declared an enemy of President Castillo, investigate him? This happens only in Peru. Undoubtedly, the control bodies will proceed according to law”, he published on his social networks on December 24.
Plan to “pacify the country” by Vladimiro Montesinos and Abimael Guzmán
In October 2021, after the death of Shining Path leader Abimael Guzmán, the then Minister of Justice indicated that he had a peculiar conversation with the former presidential adviser, Vladimiro Montesinos, in his cell at the Ancón l prison.
Torres Vásquez affirmed that that meeting was cordial, although Montesinos rebuked him for his transfer from the Naval Base to this prison.
“We are building the expansion of the Ancón I prison, they have to be transferred there [los presos de otras cárceles] there is Mr. Montesinos, whom I have visited and he tells me ‘why have they brought me here, where I have no communication with my family, at the Naval Base with Abimael [Guzmán] We already had the plan to pacify the country, but you bring me here and the old man has died of grief’”, Torres said, alluding to the death of the terrorist leader on September 11.
