Pedro Castillo He reappeared today before the Subcommittee on Constitutional Accusations (SAC) of the Congress of the Republic, which summoned him to give his defense regarding the two constitutional complaints filed against him for constitutional infringement when carrying out a coup d’état in 2022, and which also raise his disqualification from holding public office for a period of 10 years.
To do this, he connected virtually from the Barbadillo prison. However, instead of responding to the accusations, the former coup president lost his temper and attacked, once again, the Parliament and the government of his former political partner, the now vacated Dina Boluarte.
Without the advice of his lawyer—who, according to the former president himself, resigned from assuming his defense—Castillo gave a political speech in which, in addition to presenting himself as constitutional president of the Republic, he claimed to be “kidnapped.”
“I am facing a totally delegitimized Congress, which has no shame and has no morals or politics. (…) They can disqualify me, but by doing that they will have their own response from the people. Politically this Congress and this de facto government have piled stones for their own grave. (…) I am still constitutional president of the Republic, kidnapped in Barbadillo; no more parties like these and no more mediocre congressmen…”, he indicated.
In his 10-minute speech, which was interrupted by a call to order from the head of the Lady Camones subgroup due to her offending phrases, Pedro Castillo also confused the scenarios, and instead of giving his defense against the accusations of having committed a constitutional infraction with the coup d’état that took place on December 7, 2022, he rejected the charges of rebellion and conspiracy for which he has been undergoing an oral trial in the Judiciary.
“At what point have you seen me with a weapon? A room has been convinced that this cannot constitute a crime of rebellion. (…) When I made that reading (on December 7, 2022), I did it on my own, without conspiring, without meeting (with other ministers). (…) You have a position, car of the year, salary, trips for tourism. (We) are on the right side of history, in that sense I will be here and wherever you want You, we are going to meet at the Government Palace, we will see you at the change of command,” he said.
The former coup leader also tried again to distort his vacancy in office approved by the Congress of the Republic, and took the opportunity to question the legislators whom he openly challenged. “I would have liked to make this defense looking at their faces, I still have their envelopes sent to give them some ministry, some addresses, but it will be in due course, there will be a moment,” he said.
Castillo washes his hands
The reply came from the complaining congressmen. Alejandro Cavero, from Avanza País, warned that Pedro Castillo’s mediocre description of the current Parliament conveniently ignores the fact that in that same Congress “he placed 37 parliamentarians, but now he does not want to take responsibility for having improvisedly nominated the government and for all the things he brought.”
“The former president says: ‘the luxuries of Congress, they have a position, a salary’; I want to remember that he has asked this Congress for a lifetime pension; he has talked about luxuries and I want to remind the public that he has serious accusations for having used the presidential helicopter to take his family out; in addition, there are serious accusations for finding US$20,000 in a toilet in the Government Palace,” he said, while remembering that the complaint also contemplates a request for disqualification for 10 years against Castillo and former ministers Willy Huerta, Betssy Chávez and Roberto Sánchez. “We must leave an exemplary sanction to those who held power and tried to subvert the constitutional state,” he added.
Legislator Alejandro Muñante, for his part, clarified that the hearing is not a trial like the one being heard in the Judiciary because, in this case, what the Subcommittee on Constitutional Accusations must do is determine whether or not there was a constitutional violation. “Pedro Castillo decided to establish a de facto government. It was not a simple message or political announcement of a symbolic nature that he gave on December 7, but rather an order transmitted by the President of the Republic who personifies the nation. In its 2024 ruling, the TC establishes that the coup d’état is an infraction of the Constitution; it also considers that its decision openly ruptured the constitutional order and represented the execution of a coup d’état,” he remarked.
Former Ministers of the Interior Willy Huerta and of Foreign Trade and Tourism Roberto Sánchez also participated in this morning’s hearing, who denied having had prior knowledge of the Castilian coup d’état. The same was assured by the legal defense of former Prime Minister Betssy Chávez, who was not present.
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