Rafael Vela: National Control Authority of the Public Ministry will receive prosecutor’s defense against suspension

The National Control Authority of the Public Ministry has summoned the senior prosecutor, Rafael Vela Barba, so that this Friday he can offer his defense – orally, for a period of ten minutes and in a virtual hearing – against the suspension that was imposed on him for eight months and 15 days without pay on October 5.

The coordinator of the special case team Lava Jato would have requested to speak. For this reason, the request is being granted as stated in the resolution signed by the provisional supreme deputy prosecutor Giuliana Ortíz Zavaleta.

Candle will seek to disrupt the argument put forward by the entity – which controls the actions of the prosecutors – that accuses him of an alleged “functional misconduct” when questioning the decision of the Power of attorney to release Keiko Fujimori in 2020 when she is close to facing an oral trial for the alleged crime of money laundering.

According to the resolution of the control body—led by the questioned and investigated Antonio Fernández Jerí— concluded that there are “objective and sufficient elements of evidence” against the magistrate.

“[Vela] “incurred in an action or omission that, without being a crime, seriously compromises the duties of the position, commented on procedural aspects that were being carried out in an ongoing process, as well as interfered in the exercise of functions of the other organs of the State,” it states. reads the document when describing the “very serious administrative infraction.”

“Consequently, […] the disciplinary sanction of suspension without pay and temporary separation in the exercise of office” during this period, continues the text, signed by prosecutor Carlos Muñoz, who took office just one day before the resolution.

Faced with the content of this sanction from the National Control Authority of the Public Ministry, prosecutor Vela filed an appeal. In a preview of what will be his arguments this Friday, he considered that the decision of the control body has defects of irregularity and partiality, considering it “unfair, arbitrary and abusive.”

Additionally, the coordinator of the special team in the Lava Jato case added that, before the unpaid suspension was applied, some pending appeals for his right to defense and due process had not been resolved.