The first lady Lilia Paredes was called to testify last Friday, May 13, before the Public ministry about the alleged irregularities regarding the obtaining of his master’s degree at the César Vallejo University. Paredes had to answer the questions of the prosecutor Luz Taquireas a result of the Statements by businesswoman Karelim Lópezwho pointed out that the Republic President, Pedro Castillo, made a “pact” with the owner of said house of studies, César Acuña.
Lilia Paredes He arrived at the headquarters of the Public Ministry together with his lawyer, Jorge Díaz Espinoza, but refused to testify, relying on the right to silence. After the refusal, prosecutor Taquire sent a report on what happened to the coordinating superior prosecutor Rafael Vela Beard, who later decided to file a complaint for the alleged crime of obstruction of justice.
Given this, the person in charge of the defense of the head of state, Edward Pachassaid that the complaint against the first lady was nonsense, since she would be exercising a right protected by the Constitution.
“The First Lady Lilia Paredes is within her right to refuse to answer the questions of the Prosecutor’s Office since the beginning. All the more so if the person involved is her husband. If they have denounced Mrs. Paredes, they are committing prevarication”, said the lawyer.
On the other hand, the businessman investigated for the Puente Tarata case and crimes of money laundering in the Prosecutor’s Office, Zamir Villaverdewas called to the session of the Congress Oversight Commission to provide statements. However, he took advantage of the right of silence to avoid giving more details.
Villaverde had agreed with his lawyer, Julio Rodríguez Delgado, failing to provide statements about the case of the investigation against you “Until I have the legal and personal measures that guarantee my safety.”
Before remaining silent, the businessman thanked the members of the commission for making public his statement last Wednesday, May 11, where denounced, without showing any evidence, an alleged fraud in the 2021 General Elections.
Can the right to remain silent be considered obstruction of justice?
the criminal lawyer Mario Amoretti He described as questionable the decision of the Prosecutor’s Office to denounce the first lady, since he pointed out that he can refrain from answering in case the questions could be harmful to him.
“It is a bit questionable because if they call me as a witness, I can keep silent in the sense that the questions that can be asked of me can harm me. If she availed herself of this silence, I believe that she is legally empowered to do so, she indicated to The Republic.
Likewise, he specified that although there is an obligation to testify as a witness, he can first listen to the question and then indicate that he will remain silent because it may be compromised.
“She is obliged to testify because she is summoned to expose facts that she knows or that she has knowledge of. But if she is going to be asked questions that could later compromise her as being investigated, once the question is asked, that is where she can remain silent. From the first moment she can not do it. He would have to listen to the question and say that he is silent. because the question can compromise her,” he said.
However, for the criminal lawyer Charles CaroLilia Paredes would have made a mistake, because the right to remain silent is applicable only when it comes to the accused and not as a witness.
“She is in error, because the right to remain silent only applies to the accused. She, when she had to testify yesterday, was going as a witness. Therefore, by not having that faculty, that right —because she is not investigated—; So, the Prosecutor’s Office has issued an order so that another ordinary prosecutor’s office investigates this crime committed by witnesses who do not testify when they are called to appear, ”she told The Republic.
Along the same lines, the criminal lawyer Luis Lamas Puccio indicated that there could have been a confusion, since the witness is obliged to collaborate when it comes to an investigation of a third party.
“I think the lady has been confused, because it is one thing to be investigated, investigated, me to be a witness. The lady has not been charged. She has not been charged with anything, she has not been reported and she is not being investigated for any crime. She is attending as a witness, in the sense that whether or not she would have attended a meeting, she would have heard something or seen a document. The witness is a person who is supposed to have witnessed an event that is being investigated and has the obligation to collaborate with justice”, he explained to The Republic.
Expensive He recalled that it is not only a mistake, but a crime committed by the first lady, whose sentence is two years in prison.
“It is a form of obstruction of justice, a form of crime against the jurisdictional function. The penalty is not so high: it is up to two years in prison. It is not effective. Normally a sentence like this, of two years, becomes rules of conduct. Hard for someone to go to prison for that, ”he added.
Lamas Puccio He mentioned that Paredes could have argued that he had no knowledge of the situation, but he agreed that refusing to testify constitutes a crime.
“The first lady could have said: ‘I have no knowledge, I have not seen anything, the day of the events I was not there, I do not participate in this type of activity and I have not witnessed anything.’ Or if it is said that she has witnessed something, she will have to explain whether what she has said is true or not. But no. Y the witness who refuses to collaborate with justice is committing the crime of omission to testify”, remarked.
Regarding the case of Zamir Villaverde, Lamas Puccio considered that it is a different situation, since the businessman is being investigated by the courts.
“The situation is totally different because first, he is in preventive detention; second, it is being investigated; and third, I imagine that there is information that he is possibly going to provide in an effective collaborative process, and that process is reserved, while the statements of the Audit Commission are public, ”she asserted.
“He can remain silent in the sense of not giving information because that information is possibly being given to a prosecutor. Things that he has told the prosecutor he cannot tell the commission, because there is an investigation. It is not that he is denying himself, but that he has already declared, ”he added.
Finally, Expensive He also referred to the situation in Villaverde and highlighted the difference between the Oversight Commission of Congress and the Judiciary.
“We must bear in mind that the Oversight Commission is not the Judiciary; then there, if Zamir Villaverde was investigated, he has the right to remain silent, as several have done”, culminated.
