Peru's detained ex-President Castillo transferred to a hospital days after starting hunger strike

Audio By Carbonatix

LIMA, Peru (AP) — Former Peruvian President Pedro Castillo was taken from prison to a hospital on Thursday, three days after he began a hunger strike in protest of his ongoing rebellion trial.

The court hearing his trial reported that Castillo, 55, was transferred because of a “health problem” and to rule out a “fluid-electrolyte disorder and mild dehydration.”

The prosecution is seeking 34 years in prison for the former president.

Castillo has been detained since Dec. 7, 2022, when he gave a televised speech in which he declared the dissolution of Congress and his intent to rule by decree. Congress removed him from office that same day.

He has described his trial as “politicized” and a “pantomime” and has refused legal counsel provided by the judicial system. During the opening of the trial last week, he denied committing rebellion, saying that all he “did was convey the people’s desire through a political speech.”

After Castillo was removed from office, then Vice President Dina Boluarte assumed office. Three months of protests followed the presidential crisis in the South American country. Dozens of people died in the demonstrations.

Castillo was a rural school teacher with no political experience when he won Peru’s 2021 election. In addition to the current trial, he faces a criminal investigation over alleged corruption during his time in office.

Peru's corrections agency has determined that Castillo’s hunger strike breaks prison rules, and as a result, suspended his visitation rights and placed him in isolation.

Walter Ayala, a minister under Castillo's presidency and one of his former attorneys, said that the ex-president on Wednesday requested a precautionary measure from the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights to order Peru's government to end the corrections agency's sanctions against him.