The Peruvian government confirmed this Sunday that the Chargé d’Affaires of the Mexican Embassy in Lima, Carla Ornelas, has left the Andean country after Mexican authorities granted asylum to former Peruvian Prime Minister Betsy Chávez, who was charged with treason in the 2022 self-coup of former President Pedro Castillo.
“Following the instructions of the Peruvian government, Mexican agents conducted the exit inspection that day and departed the country,” the National Immigration Supervisory Board said in a short message on social network X.
The announcement came after Jose Gerri’s government decided to sever bilateral ties with Mexico and expel the representative of the diplomatic mission in Lima earlier in the week, when it became clear that Mexico had granted Chavez asylum.
In this sense, Peru’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs indicated this weekend that it had analyzed requests for safe travel for former leaders of Andean countries and determined that “there has been a negative evolution in international practice” of the Caracas Convention governing political asylum.
“In recent years, this norm has been misused, classifying common crimes as cases of political persecution. The Peruvian government considers that this practice undermines the essence of the Convention, which aims to protect the nationals of the Member States of the American System from political persecution,” the diplomatic portfolio added, subsequently announcing that it will “submit to the Organization of American States (OAS) a proposal to amend the article adopted in 1954 to prevent this misrepresentation (…).” occurs. ”
The severance of ties comes less than two months after the Peruvian judiciary imposed an obligation on Chávez to obtain judicial permission to leave Lima and ordered biometric controls to be carried out every seven days, given the former government leader’s flight risk. The Constitutional Court ordered his release last week after spending several days on a hunger strike and declaring his defense had successfully filed a constitutional complaint.
Chavez had previously been held in a prison in Lima province, taken into preventive detention in June 2023 as part of an investigation into charges of sedition and conspiracy against Castillo’s attempted coup.
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