Corruption, Crime, Law & Justice, Provinces

Govt Shakes Up Ancash Police Force, Freezes Regional Spending

Khoury and Alban in CongressWhile the Comptroller General, Fuad Khoury, has ordered the temporary freezing of most banking operations by the Ancash regional government,  Interior Minister Walter Alban announced that the government is to change the police leadership in the central  region, where a number of politically-related killings have grabbed national attention.

Both Khoury and Alban met with the Congress’ regulatory commission to discuss the different measures being taken in the region.

“We are going to appoint a new commander for Ancash, we are going to rotate all of our personnel, we are going to send more police officers,” Alban said in comments to daily Peru.21.

Meanwhile, the Ancash region’s banking operations have been frozen for 30 days to enable the state comptrollers to continue their investigation into the irregular use of public funds without risk of any more funds being used inappropriately.  So far,  investigations are being followed up on 151 banking transactions. Khoury said the measure does not affect payroll and social benefit transactions.  He said the corruption problems in the regional government are centered on the “execution of works, contracts and purchases.”

The decisions follow the murder last month of Ezequiel Nolasco, a former regional adviser who was planning to run for president of Ancash in this year’s election. Nolasco, who escaped an attempt on his life in 2010,  had filed complaints on a number of occasions alleging misuse of funds by Alvarez and by the mayor of the Santa province.

Nolasco’s killing has led to several media reports in Lima alleging that the current president of Ancash, Cesar Alvarez, was behind the murder of his political opponent. Alvarez has repeatedly denied any links to the crime and is in Lima this week to answer questions in Congress.

A congressional committee was set up and specialized prosecutors sent to Ancash in order to investigate the murder and a series of others that appear to be politically-motivated. The murders are allegedly linked to corruption related issues in Ancash, which receives enormous amount of taxes due to mining activity in the region.

“The death of Nolasco has moved the country to the point that now all the institutions are committed to not only investigate the murder but everything that happens in that region,” said Alban.

Also this week, the Judicial Control Office, OCMA, is opening an investigation into three Superior Court justices in the Santa province, who in January this year absolved three men who were charged with the assassination in 2010 of Nolasco’s son-in-law.  According to the prosecutor who prepared the case in 2010, Lorenzo Melgarejo, there was sufficient evidence to convict all the accused but only the motorcycle driver in the attack was convicted, sentenced to 25 years in prison.

Meanwhile, just hours after Khoury and Alban were in Congress on Wednesday, news came of yet another killing in the region. Criminal defense lawyer Milagros Aponte was shot dead in the coastal town of Casma, just outside her office as she returned from lunch with a client.   One of Aponte’s clients faces charges of being one of the hired gunmen who murdered the mayor of Casma, Jose Montalvan, in December 2012.

6 Comments

  1. Jason W. Smith, Ph.D.

    I am sure your readers are aware of troublesome mob scenes and these kinds of political assassination. What they may not know is how the US and its Death Star in Lima are organizing many of them. Today’s Guardian tells a fascinating story of how the US is using its secret agencies such as USAID,etc. to promote social dissolution in Cuba. It failed there as you can see but not for lack of trying. The Humala government cannot take this kind of subversion lightly and expect to survive.
    The Guardian April 3, 2014 — US secretly created ‘Cuban Twitter’ to stir unrest and undermine government
    http:// www. theguardian. com/world/2014/apr/03/us-cuban-twitter-zunzuneo-stir-unrest ………………………………………………

    • Steve Gamble

      Jason Smith, a Ph.D. in BS? Undermining the murderous Castro gov’t in Cuba is an act of heroism. President Bush didn’t negotiate and achieve a trade treaty favorable to Peru to let the moron Obama wreck it by trying to undermine the current gov’t in Peru. Besides. Obama isn’t the least bit interested in anything south of the US border.

  2. Someone needs to take control of all the corruption in Peru. Think of all the goods things that could be done with this money they put in their pockets. More improved infrastructure. More jobs for unemployed, better lighting, sewer and water being improved and the quality of life for the people of Peru. STOP Corruption Humala.

  3. Deborah Sletten

    25 years for murder, yet van der Sloot got 28. It is all arbitrary and capricious.

  4. Jason W. Smith

    I see that Mr. Wizard hasn’t changed much in fifty years – still spilling the beans – so this is the US so-called embassy (the Death Star) line. Blame Humala for everything the US sponsored under the previous comprador governments and overthrow him. Peru beware! The plot line is unfolding,

  5. Jason W. Smith, Ph.D.

    Glenn Greenwald reports today in The Intercept that the Cuban Twitter conspiracy is just the tip of the iceberg. No one should have any doubt but that the Death Star is organizing the objective conditions for a coup. It is up to the Peruvian people and their government to be sure that they are not successful not Mr. Gamble nor myself. Good luck.

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