The Attorney General of Peru, Patricia Benavidesmade official the dismissal of Marita Barreto as head of the Special Team of Prosecutors Against Corruption of Power (Eficcop), shortly after that group opened an investigation into the environment of the head of the Public Ministry.
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The resolution that confirmed the measure appeared dated November 25, although it was published in an extraordinary edition of the legal regulations bulletin issued around midnight this Monday.
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Lawyer José Miguel Cuya Berrocal, who was in charge of the Second National Superior Prosecutor’s Office Specialized against Organized Crime, was also appointed as the new coordinator of Eficcop.
The resolution states that Barreto “has not complied with the timely delivery of the required information” regarding the loading of the special team and reports that “it is pertinent (…) to change the current coordination of the aforementioned special team”.
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For this reason, she terminates her appointment as Provisional Superior Prosecutor of the Central Lima Fiscal District, and her appointment as Coordinator of the Special Team of Prosecutors against Power Corruption.
Immediately, Barreto is appointed as the titular provincial criminal prosecutor of Lima, in the office of the First Supraprovincial Criminal Prosecutor’s Office Specialized in Human Rights and Interculturality.
This Monday, after local media reported that Barreto was going to be fired, The prosecutors who make up the special team rejected the decision and, after announcing that “they will remain in office,” reaffirmed their “commitment to a frontal fight against corruption, wherever it comes from, and whoever falls.”.
Barreto maintained, for his part, on the RPP radio station that Benavides’ decision is an “abuse of power,” because he considered that there is no justified reason for his change.
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Lawyer Luciano López, who has assumed his defense, later assured on Canal N that Benavides made “misuse of his authority” to remove prosecutors and maintained that Barreto would remain in office until the dismissal resolution is published.
The investigation against the attorney general
This Monday, Eficcop and the High Complexity Crime Investigation Division of the Police carried out arrests and raids on the homes and offices of advisors and former advisors of Benavides, as part of the investigation of an alleged criminal organization “entrenched in the senior management of the Public ministry”.
That organization allegedly sought to “illegally influence decisions of congressmen” for the dismissal of the heads of the National Board of Justice (JNJ), the appointment of the current ombudsman, Josúe Gutiérrez, and the disqualification of the former National Prosecutor Zoraida Ávalos. “for illicit purposes.”
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In response to the investigation, Benavides dismissed Barreto and then assured that the investigations are “a clumsy act” to try to block the investigations that continue against the highest representatives of the government for the deaths during the protests that took place from December to March..
He reported, in this sense, that he filed a constitutional complaint in Congress for the crime of qualified homicide against President Dina Boluarte, the Prime Minister, Alberto Otárola, and other high authorities.
After that announcement, Boluarte pointed out that Benavides’ decision is a “despicable political maneuver” with which he intends to “distract the attention” of citizens from the investigations against him.
EFE
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