The Fourth Criminal Court of the National Superior Court of Justice today sentenced former Police Commander Raúl Prado Ravines to 35 years in prison, accused of leading a Death squad within the PNP, in Piura, between 2012 and 2015.
Prado was convicted of the crime of aggravated homicide against citizens Raúl Rivas Rimaycuna, Martín Tello Monja, Gian Fiestas Aquino and Hugo Yajahuanca Tineo, who were murdered after a false operation.
Prosecutor Álvaro Rodas maintained that, in February 2015, the then commander Raúl Prado Ravines was assigned to the Special Affairs Division of the PNP Intelligence Directorate (DIRIN) and headed this group outside the law together with the Agents Carlos Llanto and Williams Castaño, who received the same sentence.
Being intelligence agents gave them the perfect façade to move around the country covered by a mantle of supposed legality. This is how they traveled to Piura with the idea of planning an ambush that would later allow them to present it as a successful police operation against a criminal gang. But this plan was nothing more than a modus operandi to collect the rewards and achieve promotion at the cost of extrajudicial executions.
The four people killed in that operation staged These people were contacted by an informant who, knowing that they were likely to commit minor crimes, offered to rob a businessman. When the alleged assault was about to be committed, Prado’s agents arrived and ambushed them, firing up to seven bullets into their bodies.
Prado Ravines is currently a fugitive and the sentence will start counting once he is captured.