Legal developments in Nuevo Chimbote and Chimbas prison cases

In Peru, the First Criminal Appeals Chamber of the Superior Court of Justice of Santa has scheduled a hearing for November 12 to review the cessation of preventive detention for Valentín Fernández Bazán, the former mayor of Nuevo Chimbote. The anti-corruption prosecutor, Laureano Añanca Chumbes, is seeking to reinstate the detention as part of an investigation into an alleged criminal organization involved in money laundering during Fernández Bazán’s municipal administration.

In Argentina, Gustavo Alfaro, a provincial penitentiary agent accused of sexually abusing an inmate during a search at the Chimbas Prison, was released on October 23. Judge Gerardo Javier Fernández Caussi rejected the prosecution's request to extend his preventive detention, accepting defense arguments that the investigation had progressed sufficiently and posed no risk of obstruction. The incident, which occurred in February, involved an allegedly invasive search that resulted in injuries to an inmate; however, medical examinations found no hidden objects as initially suspected.