In recognition of her status as the nation’s sitting president, the Constitutional Court of Peru has put her case on hold until 2026.
The public prosecutor’s office-led inquiries into alleged misconduct under Boluarte were suspended by the court on Tuesday.
After the end of the presidential term, the suspended investigations would continue, the ruling stated.
One of Boluarte’s most significant investigations was centered on his response to the protests that broke out in Peru in December 2022 following Pedro Castillo’s unsuccessful attempt to dissolve Congress.
Instead, Castillo was impeached, removed from office, and imprisoned, with his supporters calling his actions an attempted coup d’etat.
His removal, in turn, led to months of intense public outcry. In support of the left-wing leader, thousands of protesters scurried streets and marched.
More than 60 people were killed and hundreds of others were injured in the subsequent clashes between the police and protesters, which Boluarte, who took over the presidency, did in response.
The use of force was a significant component of the State’s response to the protests, according to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights in some areas of the nation.
It stated that “a sizable number of victims were not even involved in the protests.”
Attorney General Patricia Benavides launched an investigation into Boluarte’s and her ministers’ actions in January 2023. In November of that year, Benavides claimed Boluarte had caused protesters’ deaths and injuries in a constitutional complaint.
Later, the public prosecutor’s office decided to leave out a portion of the investigation, which examined whether Boluarte’s actions were “genocide.”
Boluarte has defended any wrongdoing and said the protest probe was a diversion from the attorney general’s own public scandals.
Boluarte has remained open to inquiries into other facets of her presidency.
In order to investigate Boluarte’s numerous luxury watches and high-end jewelry, police in 2024 raided her home and the presidential palace. She has been accused of seeking illicit enrichment by critics.
However, Boluarte claimed that her hands were “clean,” and that Congress had turned down her impeachment requests based on the “Rolex case.”
Another investigation looked into her 2023 absence from office, when Boluarte claimed she needed to have a “necessary and essential” medical procedure done on her nose despite being criticized as having only cosmetic procedures.
They contend that by not notifying Congress, she had deviated from her purported duty. Boluarte has also refuted the allegations in that instance.
Boluarte is the country’s sixth president in seven years, and almost all of its presidents have faced criminal charges, if not convictions, in the last quarter of a century.
Boluarte, however, had filed a petition with the Constitutional Court to put an end to the investigations.
Source: Aljazeera
Leave a Reply