Patricia Benowitz: Prosecutors recognize pressure from suspended attorney general to prosecute Los Cullos Blancos del Puerto case | Valkyrie | Jose Luis Castillo Alva | | principle

Those documents Committee of Special Prosecutors Against Corruption (Eficcop) was submitted in support of the request for 36 months of detention against lawyer Jose Luis Castillo Alva, PNP Capt. Jorge Rodriguez Menacho and the counsels of the suspended attorney of the nation. Patricia Benavides Includes testimony from attorneys who were part of a special committee on the case White necks of port.

On February 14, Provincial Prosecutor Max Castro Humann testified before Eficap about the pressures Patricia Benavides exerted while she was the country’s attorney.

Between April 2022 and July 2023, Castro was Deputy Provincial Prosecutor of the First Office of the Special Group of Prosecutors in the case of Los Cullos Blancos del Puerto, which involved lawyers and judges from the Ministry of Public Affairs and the Department of Justice. Andy Rodriguez was the lead prosecutor.

In November 2022, Castro accepted the 09-2019 tax file, in which lawyer José Luis Castillo was accused as a key member of the criminal organization. The ban and harassment began against Castillo when he raised the possibility of formalization and preliminary arrest.

Castro first described a meeting he had with prosecutor Rodriguez and Castillo in which they realized the prosecutor knew details of the ongoing investigation.

“[…] During one of those work days, investigator José Luis Castillo Alva requested an interview with me and chief prosecutor Andy Rodriguez. […] Lawyer in interview [Castillo] He told us the data about his interrogation strategy as he knew about the prognosis of the actions to be taken within the investigation,” Castro declared.

“He made it clear to us that he did not represent an escape risk given any request for detention that we might make. There was word that the investigation would be formalized. That’s where the first harassment and investigation against me happened.

Another act of harassment by the suspended national prosecutor occurred shortly after in April 2023, according to the Eficap witness. [de] to file a motion for detention against Castillo.

District Attorney Andy Rodriguez told Castro that then-National Prosecutor Patricia Benavides did not want him on the prosecution team because “he was allegedly close to a former prosecutor.” [suprema] “Zoraida Avalos”.

“Prosecutor Andy Rodriguez called me into his office and told me that the ‘high-ups’, referring to the Nation’s then-Prosecutor Patricia Benavides Vargas, did not want me on the special team of prosecutors dedicated to investigating Los Cullos Blancos. Del Puerto, because he was Dr. Fanny Quispe and the former Nation’s Zoraida Avalos. Said to belong to the counsel’s group.

In May, Benavides asked his superior, Andy Rodriguez, to prepare a report ending his appointment, to which Attorney Castro announced his resignation.

“[Andy Rodríguez] “Because Patricia Benavides Vargas wants me out of the special commission to investigate Los Cullos Blancos del Puerto, she told me not to resign and to request a change, but not to leave the public ministry,” he said.

In July 2023, Max Castro was transferred to the Tax District of Lima Norte, where he served until November of that year. He later left the public ministry. The former lawyer said he now works freelance as a content creator for social networks.

Recommended video

Later that month, Patricia Benavides summoned him to her office and expressed her discomfort with his request to disclose the Los Cullos Blancos del Puerto case to the media.

“He reiterated to me that I should not communicate with the press, that we considered those biased reports against Deputy Attorney General Max Castro and myself a practical danger, and we were going to support that,” he said.

At the same meeting, Benavides told him that his deputy attorney, Max Castro, was leaking information to the press and that “he has no proper conduct” and that “he needs to clean house and decide what’s appropriate.”

“It is true that he did not ask me to remove him and that made me uncomfortable because I felt that they were recommending him to be removed from the team, so I reiterated that I will not make any statement against him. It made Dr Benavitts feel uncomfortable.

Prosecutor Andy Rodriguez and Deputy Prosecutor Max Castro previously said that in February 2023, the investigations were leaked by Edith Holgado, a prosecutor who worked in that office.

“Prosecutor Edith Holgado Vera, deputy prosecutor, requested information from the subfolder for case 09-2019 from Dr. Max Castro, which caught our attention because the information she accessed included documents that included Castillo Alva,” recalled Rodriguez.

“Considering the antecedents of the reported acts of disloyalty, […] I decided to withdraw the trust of the attorney,” said attorney Andy Rodriguez.

Despite his request for a coordinating attorney at the time, Attorney Holgado remained on the special panel of the Los Cullos Blancos case until June 2023. Andy Rodríguez ceased to be counsel for the panel by resolution issued on July 15, 2023. Neither the senior prosecutor nor the suspended attorney general explained the reasons for his departure.

Lunch at researcher’s house

In July 2023, Jorge Vargas Sulto was named by the references of Miguel Jirao, one of the advisers of former prosecutor Patricia Benavides, to replace Andy Rodriguez in the first office of the Special Committee of the case of Los Cullos Blancos. Eficcop to investigate.

Prosecutor Castillo Alva resigned three weeks later, as he himself announced, due to pressure to profit.

Vargas said that a few days after his appointment, Jirau invited him to lunch with a lawyer whose name, according to Vargas, he did not pay attention to during the phone call.

Arriving at an apartment in San Ysidro for lunch, he was greeted by Jirau and Castillo, one of the interrogators in the 09-2019 folder he had found in his hands.

“The prosecutor began to refer to different details of the investigation of the case of Los Cullos Blancos del Puerto, in which he was interrogated, which was the main obstacle, the prosecutors Jorge Díaz Cabello, who was the coordinator of the special committee, and the provincial. Prosecutor Andy Rodriguez,” Vargas said in his statement.

“Jirao told me that he had called me [al almuerzo] So I can assess the case more objectively.

El Comercio contacted Patricia Benavides’ lawyer, Juan Peña, but he excused himself from giving his version because he is out of the country and does not have access to the lawyers’ statements. This newspaper tried to contact Christian Salas, another lawyer of the suspended national prosecutor, but did not receive a response.

In recent interviews given to the media, Patricia Benavides indicated that the changes of lawyers in the special team of the case of Los Cullos Blancos del Puerto were explained by the policy of “zero fees” that she established since her appointment as the nation’s attorney. , he hoped that by mid-2022, the case would be expedited and the criminal content of the hundreds of audios involving magistrates and prosecutors would be completed.

Recommended video