The hearing was scheduled for next Monday and Castillo, through his lawyer, Benji Espinoza, requested the postponement until after the 15th, due to the fact that he has not been able to study the file of the case in which the president was included on May 30 by prosecutor Pablo Sanchez.

Espinoza explained that on the 15th the Supreme Court will deal with the appeal for the protection of rights presented in order to annul the investigation opened against the president and, if the court rules in favor of the appeal, there will be no investigation or interrogation.

He added that Castillo is also abroad on an official trip from which he’s returning this Saturday and has not been able to coordinate with his lawyer the terms of what he will testify before the prosecutor, if the appeal is rejected.

Prosecutor Sanchez included Castillo in an investigation into former Transport Minister Juan Silva, who fled this week after the Prosecutor’s Office ordered his arrest, following the disclosure of an audio in which he apparently receives a bribe from a businessman under investigation that now incriminates him.

Lawyer Espinoza alleges that the president cannot be investigated because a constitutional rule that prohibits accusing him of crimes, with some exceptions, protects the president’s immunity, thus tacitly preventing him from being investigated.

However, Sanchez and anti-government jurists argue that this rule simply does not prohibit such a procedure.

mh/oda/mrs