The former prosecutor Jose Domingo Perezwho was a member of the Lava Jato Special Team, assumed the legal defense of the sentenced former president Pedro Castillowho is serving a sentence of 11 years, 5 months and 15 days for the crime of conspiracy for rebellion.
Through a document, the former prosecutor was accredited before the Permanent Criminal Chamber of the Supreme Court to intervene as Castillo Terrones’ lawyer in the appeal that the latter presented against the sentence imposed on him in the first instance.
Pérez Gómez was dismissed from the Public Ministry. Initially, he was suspended from his duties by the institution’s Control Body and, subsequently, the National Board of Justice (JNJ) decided not to ratify him in the fiscal position.
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Later, he began to perform private duties as a lawyer. Now, he will be part of the defense team of the convicted former president.
His accreditation already appears in the judicial registry that processes the appeal against the sentence of the vacant ex-president.
“In accordance with my right of defense, I inform your presidency of the appointment of my defense attorney José Domingo Pérez Gómez, with registration of the illustrious Bar Association of Arequipa.”
The vacant former president Pedro Castillo has been serving his sentence in the Barbadillo (Ate) prison since December 7, 2022, the day he was arrested in flagrante delicto after issuing a message to the Nation where he subverted the constitutional order and perpetrated a Coup d’état.
He is also being investigated for alleged corruption and criminal organization during his government. In this case, days ago, the Judiciary extended the preventive detention against him for 12 months.
JOSE DOMINGO PÉREZ ASSUMES THE DEFENSE OF PEDRO CASTILLO
TO through a videoformer prosecutor José Domingo Pérez, stated that, like Pedro Castillo, he was “a victim of a mafia conspiracy that governs the institutions at this time” and, in that context, he was summoned by the sentenced former president.
He announced that he will not only defend him before the PJ, but that he will take his message “beyond the courts of justice” so that it can be identified that his now sponsored “is unjustly and arbitrarily deprived of his freedom.”
According to his statements, the “international context” considers Castillo a “political prisoner” and international jurists point out that he is “unduly” deprived of his freedom.
According to Pérez Gómez, Castillo Terrones is “kidnapped” and was convicted by a biased court.
“He is kidnapped at this moment. He was not allowed to exercise free defense and was tried by a court made up of judges who already had a manifest bias and had an anticipated sentence as has been determined in the course of the trial.”
When asked if joining as Castillo’s lawyer is also a show of support for the political project of Together for Peru, which advocates his freedom – through a pardon – he said that the former president told him to “give this message of support to the political project of achieving freedom and that I must convey.
“He tells me that he will make legal resistance and invites people to join this political project in which the freedom of (former) President Pedro Castillo is sought in a context in which there is no longer any doubt about the injustice that he has been suffering,” he noted.
JOSE DOMINGO PÉREZ ASSUMES THE DEFENSE OF PEDRO CASTILLO
The courtroom of the Judiciary that carried out the trial and issued the sentence against Castillo Terrones and others was made up of supreme judges José Neyra, Norma Carbajal and Iván Guerrero.
Initially, the Prosecutor’s Office had requested 32 years in prison for the former president when accusing him of rebellion.
However, after separating the postulated crime, they considered that the illicit acts should be classified as “conspiracy to rebel,” which led to the imposition of a sentence of 11 years, 5 months and 15 days.
Judge Guerrero, in the minority, considered that the crime should be classified as “attempted rebellion” and therefore considered that he should be sentenced to 13 years and 4 months in prison.
Both the majority and minority rulings concluded that Castillo Terrones committed illegal acts and deserved a criminal sentence.
The trial lasted eight months. From the beginning of the sessions, Castillo Terrones was reluctant to participate, he also refused to accredit a private lawyer of his choice, so the court assigned him up to two ex-officio professionals, in addition to the fact that during the course of the trial he objected to the accusation against him through various legal resources.
Twelfth hearing of the Pedro Castillo trial. Photo: GEC / Alessandro Currarino.
/ ALESSANDRO CURRARINO
Former attorney Maldonado regrets Pérez’s arguments and describes them as “demagogy”
Former anti-corruption prosecutor Antonio Maldonado expressed his surprise after learning that the former prosecutor of the Lava Jato Special Team had assumed the defense of the convicted Pedro Castillo.
In dialogue with El Comercio, the former State defender specified that the legal terms indicated by Pérez to submit the defense “lack a factual and legal basis.”
This, he indicated, contradicts the “paradigmatic” and “objective” figure that he had as a member of the Lava Jato Special Team.
Maldonado did not rule out that Pérez’s new position responds to the mistreatment he received from the Public Ministry, especially from the current Prosecutor of the Nation, Tomás Gálvez and from institutions such as the National Board of Justice (JNJ).
“That said, what former prosecutor José Domingo Pérez has said, regarding assuming the defense of Pedro Castillo, totally contradicts that trajectory, since the assumptions for which he claims to assume the defense are totally non-existent, false, both in fact and in some legal bases.”
The former attorney highlighted that the trial against Castillo was characterized by having taken place under the rule of law, respecting due process and in accordance with article 8 (judicial guarantees) of the American Convention on Human Rights (Pact of San José) and article 14 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.
For this reason, he reiterated that the sentenced ex-president had the “right of defense, respected, even to an excess” given that they were “very respectful and tolerant.”
“Even the right of defense has been abused. So, the claim by Mr. Domingo Pérez that Castillo did not have access to an adequate technical defense is totally false, that did not happen,” he pointed out.
Secondly, “Castillo had access to all the guarantees of due process, the examination, the reevaluation, the contradiction of the prosecution evidence; in such a way that it is not true that the trial is the work of a biased court,” said Maldonado.
The former attorney specified that it is not in dispute that he has assumed responsibility as a lawyer, since the crimes of the sponsored person cannot be attributed to the legal defender; However, what is questioned are the terms in which the defense assumes since these “They are absolutely false,” which is why he considered that the former prosecutor “lost his mind.”
“If Pedro Castillo’s coup d’état had triumphed, his political enemies would not have had access to that right guaranteed in the aforementioned international treaties. In such a way that, unfortunately, Mr. José Domingo Pérez comes to tarnish a paradigmatic figure in the Cocteles case, by assuming a defense under those terms,” he noted.
The judges of the Special Criminal Chamber of the Supreme Court during the tenth hearing of the trial of Pedro Castillo and his former ministers for the coup d’état. Photo: Judiciary
On the other hand, Maldonado also specified that to date there is not a single body of the United Nations system, such as the Human Rights Committee; o United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Deprivation of Liberty; nor any statement from the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, which indicates that Pedro Castillo is in the condition of being kidnapped and suffering a situation of injustice due to violation of his rights to a fair trial or equal treatment before the law.
Therefore, he maintained, if Pérez Gómez’s statements are supported by the position of the Mexican government, it is also “false.”
“In other words, the government of Mexico sees the speck in another’s eye and does not see its own. So, if its statements are based on what a government disconnected from the Peruvian reality and its own reality says, Mr. José Domingo Pérez is in the dark, because that does not even reach the level of an argument, that is pure demagoguery.”
The former attorney recalled that Castillo Terrones’ sentence is still in process, where the right to due process will be verified, enjoying the guarantees of the double instance.
“That is to say, if Mr. Castillo were kidnapped, Mr. José Domingo Pérez could not even be a lawyer in a kidnapped court, much less exercise this right of due process which is that of the double instance, even in that Mr. Pérez is wrong,” he remarked.
Finally, Maldonado considered that the former prosecutor “is disconnected from reality” for having assumed a position, especially political, rather than legal.
“He is detached from reality to assume a political position. He could well have assumed the defense normally and that’s it. He does not need fallacious or false arguments or open lies for that. His right to assume the defense or the legitimacy of his political option is not in question; what is in question is that – having been one of the paradigmatic prosecutors – he comes to crash with these types of fallacious and useless arguments,” he lamented.
Accreditation of José Domingo Pérez as Pedro Castillo’s lawyer, already appearing in the Judiciary
