President of Peru testifies before the prosecution for alleged abandonment of office

Peruvian President Dina Boluarte attended the prosecutor’s office on Monday to be questioned in an investigation for allegedly not communicating to the ministerial cabinet and to Parliament who was temporarily prevented from exercising the presidency for 11 days after secretly having a nose job.

The Prosecutor’s Office reported that the interrogation began at 9 in the morning, at the main headquarters of the Public Ministry, in Lima, and ended a little more than 1 in the afternoon.

This is the sixth investigation against Boluarte since he assumed power in December 2022. The president’s lawyer, Juan Portugal, said on his social networks that Boluarte came to testify to the prosecutor’s office out of “respect for State institutions.” Local television stations showed the presidential car, with tinted windows and surrounded by bodyguards, entering the tax headquarters.

On December 12, Boluarte publicly admitted that in 2023 he had had a nose job after months earlier he had dismissed questions from the press asking him to confirm or deny a report from a local weekly newspaper from mid-year that he had undergone surgery. undergoing nose surgery.

Boluarte said that the surgery was “essential” since he “needed it for respiratory functionality,” without giving details of the operation. The president ruled out that the intervention was aesthetic, as the weekly had claimed. “It did not cause me any type of incapacity or impediment to perform my duties,” Boluarte replied.

At the beginning of December, Attorney General Delia Espinoza announced that an investigation had been initiated into the alleged commission of the crimes of abandonment of office and omission of functional acts between June 29 and July 9, 2023, after the surgery.

According to the law, the crime of abandonment of office occurs when an official leaves his position “without having legally ceased” while the omission of functional acts occurs when the public servant “omits, refuses or illegally delays an act of his position.” ”. Both are punishable by two years in prison.

After concluding her preliminary investigation, the attorney general will be able to constitutionally accuse the president before Parliament, so that when her term ends – on July 28, 2026 – she can be tried before the Supreme Court, as determined by the procedure for senior officials in Peru. .

With this investigation, the president adds six tax investigations for various crimes, including aggravated homicide for his responsibility in the deaths of protesters between December 2022 and March 2023 during a series of protests that demanded his resignation.

[Con información de AP]

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