Senator Serafín Andrés, from Together for Peru, has hired as a technician in his office the communicator Willmerth Canteño Albornoz, convicted as co-author of the crime of aggravated usurpation, for the dispossession of the home of a 76-year-old woman.
Canteño ran unsuccessfully, in the 2022 regional and municipal elections, for Together for Peru for the mayor of Amarilis, in Huánuco, the same region for which Andrés was elected senator. It was during that period, when both were active in the same party, that they met.
The sentence
The events date back to July 2019, in Taruca, Huánuco, when Canteño and five other defendants accompanied Nilo Cuenca to strip his aunt Encarnaciona Pérez, 76, of possession of the property she occupied.
According to the sentence, the events occurred in a violent manner. Cuenca kicked the door to enter the home and hit the woman. Then, with the other defendants – including Canteño – they forcibly took their belongings and left them on the side of the road. The injuries to the victim, who recovered possession of the property with the help of police, family and neighbors, were proven in a legal medical certificate.
Twelve days later, when the woman was in the building with two relatives, a loud explosion was heard. When they left, they found a package wrapped in a white bag, with transparent tape and a wick, meters from the house. The expert report determined that it was an “operational improvised explosive device,” with glass and steel staples. That day, Pérez’s children received threatening messages: “take care of your mom, she could die” and “you should leave where you don’t belong, you will regret it.”
At the trial, it was proven through the police report, photographs and a video that Canteño was at the scene during the looting. Due to these events, in May 2024, the Pillco Marca Criminal Court sentenced him as co-author of aggravated usurpation to five years in prison, but the execution of the sentence was suspended for four years, conditioned by rules of conduct. On July 2, the sentence was confirmed and civil compensation was set at S/ 5,000. For Pérez’s family, however, the sanction has been insufficient. “They mistreated an elderly person, but everything ended with a minimal penalty despite the seriousness of the events,” said one of his sons.
In dialogue with El Comercio, Canteño acknowledged that he was at the scene, but denied having directly participated in the eviction. “I have not had direct participation in the incident. I was only as a friend of the nephew of the woman who reported. I made the mistake, suddenly, of taking him on the motorcycle,” he said.
This newspaper also contacted Senator Serafín Andrés, who stated that he had no information about the sentence. To our questions about the hiring of personnel and the filters applied, he did not respond.
another case
The senator from Together for Peru and Canteño had already agreed before the latter arrived in Congress. A police intervention report records that both were intervened in April 2021, in the middle of the period of health restrictions, at the Hotel Cuzco, in Huánuco, along with 16 other people.
According to the document, the agents found the attendees gathered around three tables, drinking liquor and without masks. Among those intervened was also former congressman Guillermo Bermejo, whom the police identified as the person who appeared to chair the meeting.
