López Obrador ratifies Mexico’s willingness to grant political asylum to the family of Pedro Castillo

The Mexican government confirms itself as a great squire in the region for Pedro Castillo, the former president of Peru who tried to dissolve Congress with a failed self-coup. In his morning press conference, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, confirmed this Monday his willingness to grant political asylum to the family of the rural teacher. “We have the doors of Mexico open for Pedro Castillo, for his family and for all those who feel harassed or persecuted in Peru. That is our foreign policy tradition,” he declared.

Castillo, a former union leader with a leftist position, was detained on December 7 by his own escort while on his way to the Mexican Embassy in Lima. Regarding his situation, López Obrador added: “You have to wait, because initially there was a request, but things change. When he requested that the doors of the Embassy be opened for him, the situation was not as it is now.

The former president faces criminal proceedings for the crimes of rebellion and conspiracy, as well as for leading an alleged criminal organization that settled in the presidential palace. Last week the judge ordered 18 months of preventive detention against him. For now, he will remain in custody at the Barbadillo facilities, a prison east of Lima, until June 2024, the same prison where former president Alberto Fujimori is being held.

On the eve of López Obrador’s statements, Dina Boluarte, who has assumed the Presidency of Peru as Castillo’s first vice president, mentioned that Foreign Minister Ana Cecilia Gervasi was aware that the Mexican State had already granted political asylum to Castle and his. “I told the chancellor to proceed according to the law.” It is still unknown if Lilia Paredes, Castillo’s wife, who is also being investigated by the Prosecutor’s Office, traveled to Mexico with her two children.

Last Thursday, Boluarte called for consultations with the ambassadors of Mexico, Argentina, Colombia and Bolivia in protest at their support for former President Castillo. The inconvenience of the current Executive is due to an alleged interference in the “internal affairs” of Peru by expressing his support for the former president. Weeks before the attempted coup, López Obrador had criticized the Peruvian Congress for not granting Castillo permission to travel to Mexico for the Pacific Alliance summit. He even slipped the possibility of the event taking place in Peru so that he could be present. And as soon as Dina Boluarte crossed the presidential band, she again advocated for Castillo: “” It is that the president won [las elecciones]the will of the people who elected him must be respected, recognizing that he won democratically and that he cannot be removed.”

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