Castillo supporters in Peru allege ousted president may have been under the influence of drugs

The former chief of staff and the lawyer of the socialist Pedro Castillo suggest that the former Peruvian president deposed and in preventive custody “may have been encouraged” to dissolve Parliament under the influence of psychotropic drugs: “he does not remember” his announcement on television, supporters of the former president said on Friday (9).

“I asked him why he read the decree dissolving Parliament and he replied that he doesn’t remember it,” former cabinet chief Guido Bellido told reporters after visiting Pedro Castillo at the police headquarters in Lima, where the former president is imprisoned.

“There are indications that the president was forced to read the dissolution message, and whoever wrote the text did so to open the vacancy in the presidency,” Guido Bellido said on Twitter.

Guido Bellido called for an “urgent toxicological test” to “free Prof. Pedro Castillo”, in his Twitter post. This theory that Pedro Castillo acted under the influence was developed by one of his lawyers, Guillermo Olivera.

“What I do know is that when the former president read this message written by other people, a few minutes before, they gave him something to drink, supposedly water, and after drinking the water, he felt stunned,” Olivera told the press in front of Castillo’s place of detention. “Everyone saw that he was shaking as he read, and I assume he was under the influence of a sedative,” said the lawyer.

Pedro Castillo, however, refused this Monday (12) to submit to the toxicological tests requested by the Public Ministry.

ATTEMPTED COUP AND ARREST

Minutes after then President Pedro Castillo attempted a coup d’état, announcing the dissolution of Congress and the establishment of an “emergency government”, the Peruvian Legislature held an emergency session and declared a presidential vacancy (the equivalent in Peruvian law to the impeachment) for permanent moral incapacity on Wednesday (7). Then the now deposed president was arrested.

The coup attempt was short-lived. By dissolving Congress, Castillo announced that elections would be called for a new Legislature, with constituent powers, which should approve a new Magna Carta within a maximum of nine months.

“We took the decision to establish an exceptional government, aimed at restoring the rule of law and democracy. The following measures are dictated: temporarily dissolve the Congress of the Republic and install an exceptional emergency government,” said the Peruvian president on open television during the announcement.

The Armed Forces and the National Police of Peru had pointed out in a statement that they “respect the established constitutional order”, and that this “establishes that the President of the Republic has the power to dissolve Congress, if it has censored or denied his confidence in two Council of Ministers”, which did not happen.

Castillo had dissolved Congress hours before the vote on the presidential vacancy, proposed for the third time since the beginning of his term (he took office in July 2021).

The administration of the ousted president was marked by allegations of corruption and in October the Peruvian Public Ministry denounced him for fraud in bids.

Vice President Dina Boluarte took over the presidency, who shortly before had rejected Castillo’s coup attempt. “I reject Pedro Castillo’s decision to break the constitutional order with the closure of Congress. It is a blow that aggravates the political and institutional crisis that Peruvian society will have to overcome with strict compliance with the law,” she wrote on Twitter.

With information from Gazeta do Povo

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