The former president of Peru Pedro Castillo has maintained on Wednesday that he has never committed a crime of rebellion and has defended his appeal against the preventive prison imposed against him, assuring that «it has only served to polarize» the Andean country.
This is what the former president said during his intervention in a hearing organized by the Peruvian Judiciary to analyze the appeal against the 18 months of preventive imprisonment against Castillo, as reported by RPP.
«I have never committed the crime of rebellion because I never took up arms, nor have I told others to do so. I must say that who did take up arms is this tyrannical government that has killed my 28 Peruvian brothers and sisters in Andahuaylas, Ayacucho and other places,» said the former president, listing 20 missing and more than 200 wounded.
Castillo defended himself by affirming that he has not committed the crime of conspiracy, accusing «those who, from Congress and other institutions», would have engineered the fall of his government through «successive requests for presidential vacancy and other tricks».
«If my family has had to leave the country and take refuge, it is because in Peru they were in danger, not only their freedom, but also their integrity and their own lives. However, I will stay here to face any process because I have the truth on my side,» Castillo reiterated during his speech.
Meanwhile, he denounced that up to now – since his arrest on December 7 – he has been held incommunicado, without access to a telephone to contact his family.
For this reason, he asked the supreme judges to reflect on «how this unjust preventive detention that has been imposed on me has only served to polarize our country, which needs to be reconciled on the basis of justice».
«Everything that has been done against me is part of a political revenge, orchestrated for having clashed with the interests of economic and media power groups. Therefore, I ask for the cessation of hatred and that I be set free as it is my just right», added the former president.
The preventive detention decreed by the Peruvian Judiciary -and proposed by the Attorney General’s Office- takes place after Castillo announced the dissolution of Congress and the establishment of an emergency government on December 7, events after which he was dismissed by Congress and subsequently detained by Peruvian security forces.
Source: (EUROPA PRESS)
