“I present the Lima medal to that woman who throughout her administration has shown us courage, integrity, honesty, wisdom and other virtues that adorn her,” said Rafael López Aliaga, mayor of Lima, without sparing praise, shortly before awarding the medal. to the then prosecutor of the Nation, Patricia Benavides, back in March 2023. Three months had passed since Pedro Castillo was imprisoned for his failed self-coup d’état and the mayor of the Peruvian capital had the brilliant idea of honoring Benavides in the International Women’s Day, with an 18-karat gold-plated medal. “She freed us from a dictatorship and had the courage to put a firm hand on a coup plotter,” López Aliaga declared last month, in an attempt to maintain that he had nothing to regret.
That same woman who assumed the highest-ranking position in the Public Ministry in July 2022 has just been dismissed as supreme prosecutor and, consequently, as prosecutor of the Nation by the plenary session of the National Board of Justice (JNJ). Unanimous decision of five votes in favor and none against. The main reason: to influence the investigation of her sister, the superior judge, Enma Benavides, accused of having acquitted 41 defendants for illicit drug trafficking in exchange for bribes, using her position. To do this, Patricia Benavides removed the prosecutor who was following in her footsteps, Bersabeth Revilla, based on a fraudulent report of low productivity, and without respecting her right to defense. It would later be known that Revilla had 90% productivity in resolving cases.
The JNJ has resolved that Patricia Benavides committed a “willful act exploiting her position as prosecutor of the Nation.” Benavides had been temporarily suspended since December of last year for another case that sinks her even further: leading a criminal network in the Public Ministry to influence the decisions of congressmen from various benches in exchange for filing her cases in the Prosecutor’s Office. This exchange of favors would have been decisive in the appointment of Josué Gutiérrez as ombudsman, the disqualification of the former National Prosecutor, Zoraida Ávalos, and the motion to promote the dismissal of the regular members of the National Board of Justice.
“My removal as provisional supreme prosecutor was a mafia act, of corruption,” Bersabeth Revilla told the newspaper a few weeks ago. The Republic. Azucena Solari, the prosecutor who prepared the report that determined her departure, was also dismissed for having committed very serious offenses and not acting with due independence. The same fate befell Enma Benavides, her sister, for having interfered in the functions of the Prosecutor’s Office and for having lied in the declaration of her disciplinary record.
Another of the faults of the former prosecutor of the Nation, Patricia Benavides, according to the report of the National Board of Justice, was having appointed Miguel Ángel Vegas Vaccaro as provisional supreme prosecutor despite having a not very neat resume: being investigated for alleged corruption and having been suspended for having allowed 102 files to expire. They are not the only stains on her file: Patricia Benavides has been questioned for irregularities in her master’s and doctoral theses, which are not found in any academic repository. At some point she promised that she would show them to clear up doubts, but she never did.
The relatives of those murdered during the protests against President Dina Boluarte accuse Benavides of having obstructed and delayed the search for the culprits by having transferred the investigations to Lima, when they were already advanced in the regions. Only on November 27, 2023—curiously, just a few hours after being accused of leading a mafia—, practically a year after the events, Benavides filed a constitutional complaint against President Boluarte and her ministers for those deaths. .
“Former prosecutor Patricia Benavides and her sister judge Emma Benavides have been dismissed for very serious offenses related to the misuse of their positions to file investigations and collect bribes from drug traffickers. Some justice that the mafia Congress will seek to reverse. “To continue mobilizing,” warned former congresswoman Indira Huilca. For his part, Jorge del Castillo, legal representative of Benavides, has announced that they will appeal the sanction against his client. “This is an outrage, an abuse that is shameful (…) There is still a lot of ham to cut. This is not over. Defeat for no one,” he stressed.
The fall of Patricia Benavides, a former ally of the head of state, began with the arrest of her right-hand man, Jaime Villanueva, alias The philosopher, six months ago. Villanueva quickly accepted the effective collaboration, detailing details that muddied the lawyer who, on Women’s Day, received the Lima medal from the mayor.
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