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Lima,.- The National Control Authority (ANC) of the Public Prosecutor's Office of Peru suspended from office, for a period of six months, the anti-corruption prosecutor José Domingo Pérez for alleged serious administrative infractions in his work leading the accusation for money laundering against the current presidential candidate Keiko Fujimori, which was ordered to be archived by decision of the Constitutional Court, according to a resolution published this Tuesday.
The ANC resolution resolved to apply the precautionary measure of preventive removal of Pérez from the position of provincial prosecutor for a period of six months, during which time he will be prevented from exercising the powers of his position in the Prosecutor's Office.
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This sanction responds to the alleged serious administrative infractions attributed to Pérez as a member of the deactivated Lava Jato Special Team, which investigated the corruption scandals promoted by the Brazilian company Odebrecht, after the annulment of the trial against Fujimori and dozens of militants of his Fuerza Popular party in the so-called "Cocktails case". The daughter of the late former president Alberto Fujimori (1990-2000) was under investigation for the alleged irregular financing of her electoral campaigns in 2011 and 2016, which could have led to a 30-year prison sentence, but a year ago the National Superior Court ordered the dismissal of that trial and returned the case to the intermediate stage. Recently, the Constitutional Court issued a ruling in favor of Fujimori that dismissed the charges, arguing that the omission of contributions received for the electoral campaign in the declarations before the control authorities was not a crime at the time of the events. Currently, Fujimori is pursuing his fourth presidential bid for the upcoming general elections in April. Prosecutor Pérez was sanctioned by the ANC, according to the resolution, for allegedly presenting an accusation without the imputation being duly substantiated at a factual, legal, and evidentiary level. This control body indicated that Pérez's conduct has compromised the duties of the position and affected "the fair administration of justice and due process". The ordered suspension against Pérez is known a week after the decision of the interim Attorney General, Tomás Gálvez, to dissolve the special teams of the Public Ministry that investigated emblematic corruption cases in the country, such as the one involving the Odebrecht corruption plot. Among the special teams of prosecutors was the one investigating the 'Cuellos Blancos' case, a presumed corrupt plot within the Judiciary where Gálvez himself is involved. Gálvez, who temporarily replaces the suspended and disqualified Attorney General Delia Espinoza, considered that these special teams "have already completed their cycle". Regarding the Lava Jato team, which has handled high-profile cases such as the investigation and trial against Keiko Fujimori and former presidents Alejandro Toledo (2006-2011), Alan García (1985-1990 and 2006-2011), Ollanta Humala (2011-2016) and Pedro Pablo Kuczynski (2016-2018), he considered that its members protected Odebrecht during their investigations and said that for this reason he has denounced them.
