The president of Peru, Pedro Castillo, appears in the records as having died on September 25 due to a “decapitation”.
The manipulation of the records, which also showed opposition leader Keiko Fujimori as deceased, is being investigated by the justice system, and a YouTube tutorial is suspected.
The Peruvian president would have died last September 25 due to decapitation, according to the National Registry of Identification and Civil Status (Reniec).
The curious annotation adds that the events would have happened inside the Government Palace.
Castillo was not the only ‘victim’ of the errors in the registry.
The former presidential candidate and leader of the opposition, Keiko Fujimori, who died in the Amazon region on February 12, 2022, also appears deceased.
Also listed as deceased are Peru’s Attorney General, Patricia Benavides, former Lima mayoral candidate Daniel Urresti and other close associates of Castillo’s government who are being investigated in the case involving the president.
After the adulteration of the death data was reported in the local press, Fujimori denounced the agency in a letter addressed to the highest authority of Reniec, Carmen Velarde, to whom he requested “corrective measures” in the case.
In the text, Fujimori expressed that “the security problems of Reniec’s database” expose and harm Peruvians.
Days before, Prosecutor Benavides had also repudiated the manipulation of Reniec’s official records.
Far from considering it a mere administrative error, Carmen Velarde qualified the situation as a “crime of organized crime” from which they intended to damage the authorities and requested the intervention of Congress.
In addition, she considered that the Ministry of Health is responsible for the facts because it had provided training to health sector professionals in 2020 to carry out death certificates virtually in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The tutorials for these procedures were then posted on YouTube and made available to the public on the platform.
The scandal forced the agency to take action and review its procedures with caution.
According to government authorities, registrations that were carried out virtually will now have to be processed in person at Reniec offices, something that could generate a setback in the digitalization of State services.
“We regret this decision very much, and I apologize to the citizens because there are usually between 12,000 and 15,000 people who die, and in that pain of losing a loved one, did not have to come to Reniec because they knew that the record was generated ex officio.
But unfortunately, the legal security in the difficult times the country is going through merits that today we give this priority”, concluded the head of the agency in a press conference.
With information from Sputnik