The former president of Peru Pedro Castillo, deprived of liberty in that country after being dismissed by Congress, formally submitted a request for asylum to the Government of Mexico in a letter sent by his lawyer at dawn this Thursday to President Andrés Manuel López Obrador.
The asylum request was confirmed by the Mexican Foreign Minister, Marcelo Ebrard, who showed on Twitter the document signed by Castillo's lawyer, Víctor Pérez Liendo.
Liendo said in the letter that the former president was the victim of "unfounded persecution" by the Peruvian justice system, "which has taken on a political nature in its actions."
The lawyer also said in his letter that Peruvian justice creates "
a climate of extreme defenselessness
and permanent political persecution of anyone who thinks differently from the oligarchic group that rules over all the country's institutions."
Ebrard confirmed on Twitter that Mexico has begun consultations with the Peruvian authorities to carry out the asylum procedures.
"Ambassador Pablo Monroy reports to me from Lima that he was able to meet at 1:20 p.m. (5:20 p.m. GMT) with Pedro Castillo in the Penitentiary Center. He found him physically well and in the company of his lawyer," he wrote.
"We have proceeded to initiate consultations with the Peruvian authorities."
Pedro Castillo announced last Wednesday the dissolution of Congress and the establishment of a national emergency government, which was widely interpreted as a coup, for which the deputies
dismissed him for "permanent moral incapacity
. "
It was the third attempt to remove him in almost 17 months of government for the same reasons established in the Constitution.
Later he was
arrested and transferred to a prison in Lima
, the capital, where a supreme judge issued seven days of provisional detention on Thursday.
The one who was his vice president, Dina Boluarte, assumed the presidency of the country on Wednesday to become the first woman in Peru to assume that position.
This is the prison where former president Pedro Castillo is imprisoned (the same one where Alberto Fujimori is serving his sentence)
Dec 8, 202201:26
López Obrador had revealed this Thursday in his morning conference that Castillo phoned to request asylum from the Mexican Embassy in the Andean country.
"He spoke here to the office so that they would notify me that he was going to the Embassy, that he was going to request asylum and that they would open the door of the Embassy for him, but surely they had already tapped his phone," said the Mexican president.
He added that he instructed Ebrard to speak with the Mexican ambassador in Peru and open the door for Castillo to request asylum, but "shortly after they took over the embassy with police and citizens, they surrounded the embassy. And he couldn't even get out They arrested him immediately."
Mexico has not yet recognized Boluarte
as the new president of Peru.