The possible deactivation of the Lava Jato Special Team and other teams of the Public Ministry of Peru was suspended, after the Board of Supreme Prosecutors postpone the scheduled vote to define its continuity. The acting prosecutor of the Nation, Tomas Galvezclarified that, until complete documentation on the performance and expenses of these working groups is available, no final resolution will be made.
In dialogue with RPP, The supreme prosecutor also mentioned that the meeting in which the future of these teams was going to be decided was suspended due to the lack of reports that the general management of the institution and the Office of Registration and Evaluation of Prosecutors (OREF) of the Public Ministry, as well as the technical team.
“Unfortunately, they did not give us all the information. We have 70% – 75% of the information and we want to have complete information to make a decision. And that is why this issue was not discussed this week and we are going to discuss it at the next meeting, which should be next week, and based on the complete information that we must have, the decision will be made,” he mentioned.
Visibly uncomfortable, he highlighted that he did not mention that he would eliminate special teams, but rather that he would evaluate their continuity, despite the fact that basically it is the same. “I never said that it was going to be deactivated or that it was going to be eliminated. What I have said is that the permanence of the teams is being evaluated”, he indicated.
In relation to the questions that suggest that the eventual deactivation of these teams would promote impunity, he mentioned that “quite the opposite.” Asked what would be the fate of concluding that there are no optimal results, he stated that he would not like to advance an opinion and limited himself to saying that “the information has to reach us in full to see if it has actually been achieved or not and based on that make the decision”.
As is known, these teams are in charge of current investigations such as the case Lava Jatowhich studies corruption crimes of officials linked to Brazilian companies, including Odebrecht and OAS. The continuity of such groups gained special notoriety after the recent ruling of the Constitutional Court (TC)which annulled the accusation against Keiko Fujimori for the so-called Cocktails case and ordered the file of the process, a circumstance that influences the evaluation of the effectiveness of the investigations.
The expectation regarding the determination adopted by the Board remains high, given the impact of the cases investigated and the implications that altering the composition or existence of the special teams of the Public Ministry of Peru.
It is worth mentioning that his stance against special teams is not new. Prior to the session in which the evaluation was scheduled, he reiterated in dialogue with Peru 21 that “I never agreed with the work of the special teams, since in many cases they served to persecute people, and in others to cover up.”
