Peruvian Supreme Court Judge Juan Carlos Checkley has ordered this Thursday to decree seven days of preventive detention against former President Pedro Castillo while the investigation against him for an alleged crime of rebellion is being carried out, after he announced the dissolution of Congress.
The magistrate thus complies with the request of the Prosecutor’s Office, which argued that the measure was necessary to continue with the investigations aimed at, for example, identifying which other officials would have participated in Castillo’s decision to end the Congress, establish a government of exception and call new legislative elections.
Castillo was arrested on Wednesday after being dismissed by Congress after it announced its dissolution. According to Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador himself, the former Peruvian president was intercepted when he was trying to go to the Mexican Embassy in Lima.
After giving his statement at the Lima Prefecture, Castillo was transferred to the Police Special Operations Department (Diroes), in the district of Ate, in Lima, a penitentiary center where former president Alberto Fujimori is also being held.
After his dismissal and subsequent arrest, and as required by the Constitution, he has been taken over by the former vice-president, Dina Boluarte.