The raid was in the framework of an investigation for alleged corruption in the fuel purchase tender.
The Peruvian Prosecutor’s Office announced on Saturday the opening of a preliminary investigation against prosecutor Norah Córdova for alleged irregularities committed by staff from her office in the recent and controversial raid on the Government Palace offices.
The investigations were opened by the Decentralized Office of Internal Control of the Prosecutor’s Office after a complaint filed by Eduardo Pachas, the attorney for the President of Peru, Pedro Castillo, After the prosecutor’s office leaked that the president had not provided facilities for the diligence.
According to an act signed by the deputy prosecutor Luis Medina, Castillo allegedly refused to allow the prosecutors to enter the offices of the Secretariat of the Government Palace in Lima, which is denied by the president and his lawyer.
The raid was part of the investigation by prosecutor Córdova on alleged corruption in the bid for a purchase of fuel from the state oil company Petroperú worth 74 million dollars that was awarded to a company owned by Samir Abudayeh, with whom Castillo met. in the Government Palace days before.
Likewise, Castillo’s lawyer filed an appeal before the Justice for Córdova to refrain from requesting any new raid on the Government Palace, considering that the magistrate is acting with partiality due to her known opinions contrary to Castillo, according to local media.
Córdova did not rule out on Friday in an interview with the RPP radio station the possibility of requesting new raids at the headquarters of the Head of State and of withdrawing from the case, considering that his action is partial.
The magistrate, in charge of the First Corporate Provincial Criminal Prosecutor’s Office Specialized in Crimes of Corruption of Officials, emphatically denied that her marked political opinions contrary to Castillo affect the investigation.
“We have ‘terraces'”
Among her arguments, she slipped several times that she is not empowered to directly investigate the head of state, since that competence falls exclusively on the Attorney General (attorney general), Zoraida Ávalos, to whom she is informing about the progress of the proceedings.
During the electoral campaign, the prosecutor Córdova publicly positioned herself against Castillo’s candidacy by co-assigning the message “no to communism” in her profile photo on the social network Facebook.
Then he called “communists, ‘terrucos’ (terrorists) and corrupt” those who accompanied the Castillo government team and, when the electoral bodies declared the leftist candidate the winner of the elections, he launched the message “habemus ‘terrucos'” ( we have terrorists).
Regarding these publications, Córdova argued that they correspond to his private life and that they are not related to his functions as a prosecutor because they were also made in June, when he did not have any investigation where the president was included as a witness as now.
“It is a private Facebook page in which the Constitution gives me the right as a person to have an opinion. That publication was in the month of June. The president was elected and my respects to him. As a provincial prosecutor, I do not have the power to investigate it, “he said.
Prosecutor Córdova had already been known since 2018 when she raided the offices of the journalistic portal IDL-Reporteros to seize the telephone recordings that they revealed “The white necks of the port”, a great plot of judicial corruption and peddling of influence and favors.
In that case, her husband César Serrano was allegedly involved, who had contact with the Supreme Judge César Hinostroza, alleged leader of the plot, to apparently try to extend his term as vice president of the National Academy of the Magistracy. (I)
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