Peru rejects AI report pointing to President Boluarte’s responsibility for deaths during protests

Peru on Thursday rejected a Amnesty International report which states that President Dina Boluarte should be investigated as the possible mastermind of serious human rights violations that left 50 civilians dead in protests demanding her resignation between 2022 and 2023.

Prime Minister Gustavo Adrianzén told reporters that the State does not respond to a non-governmental organization, but rather “relates directly with international organizations.”

“We categorically reject each and every section of the report… even more so when the president is being improperly held responsible for the events that occurred during the protests,” he said.

Demonstrations erupted in Peru on December 7, 2022 after the Congress removed then-President Pedro Castillo from officewho had tried to close down Congress shortly before, but received no support from the security forces. Boluarte, who was vice president, succeeded him in office.

The protesters—mostly indigenous people from the southern Andes who had voted overwhelmingly for Castillo—demanded the resignation of Boluarte, who had pledged to step down if Castillo was removed by Congress. In the end Castle was imprisoned and the court ordered his preventive detention for three years while he is investigated for the crimes of rebellion and corruption.

Amnesty’s South America researcher Madeleine Penman said at a press conference that they conducted a legal analysis “of all the decisions and omissions by the president over three months, and based on that analysis we have reached the conclusion that confirms that Dina Boluarte could be considered the indirect author (intellectual author) of the serious human rights violations committed during the protests.”

For this analysis, Amnesty reviewed the concepts developed by the Supreme Court of Peru in its 2009 ruling, in which it sentenced former President Alberto Fujimori to 25 years in prison as the indirect author of the murder of 25 Peruvians, including a child, at the hands of a military group that acted under his knowledge during his government (1990-2000).

“The requirements for proving indirect authorship set by the Supreme Court of Peru have been met in the case of Dina Boluarte,” said Penman.

Luxury watches case reaches the Peruvian Congress

Peru’s Congress on Thursday accepted a complaint from the Attorney General against President Dina Boluarte to prosecute her at the end of her term for a alleged case of corruption for having received luxury watches and jewelry of a regional governor.

The legislative committee that processes accusations against high-ranking officials began the process, which can last months and involves several phases within Congress, to investigate a complaint filed in May by Attorney General Juan Villena. He accused Boluarte as the alleged author of the crime of improper passive bribery.

According to the Constitution, Congress must wait until Boluarte’s term ends in 2026 for the accusation to be sent back to the prosecutor’s office and, if necessary, for the latter to accuse her before a judge.

The only reasons for which a president can be impeached in the middle of his term are treason, dissolving Parliament, preventing elections or blocking the operation of the Electoral Tribunal.

According to the prosecutor’s investigation, the president allegedly received Rolex watches and jewelry as a donation from the governor of Ayacucho, Wilfredo Oscorima. The crime of bribery, also called graft, is a variant of the crime of corruption in Peruvian law.

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