Peru’s prosecutor’s office orders influential journalist Gustavo Gorriti to reveal his sources

Chinche’s provision indicates that the investigation into the alleged crime of bribery against Gorriti is complex and will have a duration of eight months, and will be investigated jointly by Rafael Vela, head of the Lava Jato Special Team, and Prosecutor José Domingo Pérez.

Prosecutor Chinchay has charged Gorriti, Vela and Pérez Passive and active briberyTherefore, IDL Reporteros gave media support to prosecutors, allegedly in exchange for information from the prosecutor’s office.

The basis of the Chinchay investigation are the statements of Jaime Villanueva, a former advisor to suspended Attorney General Patricia Benavides, and whose complaint has been presented by Luis Miguel Kaya of the Peruvian Aprista Party, who accuses him of forcing the former’s suicide. In April 2019 for interfering in the investigation of President Alan García and the cocktail case, where Keiko Sophia Fujimori is being investigated.

a long career

Gorriti, 76, is a journalist who started his career at ‘Caritas’ magazine and investigated Genocide in the Andes and Amazon by the terrorist group Sendero Luminoso, In the mid-eighties, he was a Fellow at the Nieman Foundation in the United States, where he wrote the book ‘Sendero, Historia de la Guerra Millenaria en Peru’.

On April 5, 1992, in a self-coup carried out by former President Alberto Fujimori Fujimori and his right-hand man Vladimir Montesinos, Gorriti was detained for three days at the Peruvian Army headquarters and he succeeded in accessing the sources of his files. Without searching your computer. Gorriti’s release was made possible by a petition to the United States government, former President Fujimori, and the Spanish government of the time, as Gorriti was a correspondent for ‘El Pais’ in the nineties.

In 2023, IDL Reporteros won the Gabo Award and the Latin American Investigative Journalism Award, presented by the Prensa y Sociedad Institute (IPYS) during the Latin American Investigative Journalism Conference in Mexico. To investigate the massacres in Ayacucho and Juliaca During protests in Peru.

Romina Mella, editor-in-chief of IDL Reporteros, tells ABC that “the disinformation campaign began in 2018,” and that the editorial office and Gorriti’s home in Lima are also being harassed. The disinformation campaigns stemmed from the investigations into the Lava Jato case and the Lava Juez case, where systemic corruption in the judiciary was exposed.

“Disinformation campaigns against IDL reporters have intensified over the past twelve months and we have found that the disinformation campaign originates from a television channel called Vilax, whose owner Erasmo Wong has been investigated for money laundering since 2011. These other media Whose business is propaganda,” says Mela.

“Those publications want to portray IDL reporters and journalists as if they were political operators to discredit our investigation,” he says. ,At IDL Reporteros we decided to investigate misinformationIdentify the disinformation campaigners and destroy the disinformation campaigns against us.

The journalists say that to date they have identified nine disinformation campaigns that start with Vilax and then move to satellite media. Subsequently, there is violence in the streets, a violent group – called La Resistación – conducts harassment campaigns in the streets, throwing garbage and feces on the editorial office and finally, “those who are investigated are based on false facts. Send complaints to the prosecutor’s office because they want to criminalize our journalistic work.

«They want to present Gorriti as a political operator, a prosecutor of the Shadow Nation, who controls and directs the investigations in the Public Ministry, which drove Alan García to suicide when he was about to be arrested to investigate the case. Was going to. Lava Jato. This is a delusional allegation,” says Mela. “The very serious thing is that this tax investigation is based on In a criminal complaint made by a member of the APRA party and originates from statements by Jaime Villanueva, a former adviser to prosecutor Patricia Benavides, both of which have been investigated by IDL Reporteros.

Protect your sources

IDL Reporteros has revealed that behind the disinformation campaigns are the head of the Popular Renovation Party and the mayor of Lima, Rafael López Aliaga, and the head of the Fuerza Popular Party, Keiko Sofia Fujimori, whose decision was on the use of illegal funds. The 2011 and 2016 presidential campaigns begin in July.

In response to Chinche’s allegation, Gorriti has indicated that he will not disclose his sources and that, as requested, he will make every possible effort. Do not increase your communication from 2016 to 2021Because, “In doing so, we will follow the dictates of the laws, the Constitution and international treaties but above all the highest duties of journalism and independence.”

“Behind a journalist is the citizen’s right to be informed. What Prosecutor Chinchay wants to do is attack freedom of expression based on persistent lies and disinformation campaigns, which he gives credibility to his investigation,” concluded Mella, who does not deny that the prosecutor’s The office orders a search of Gorrity’s home and forcefully demands access to the sources of his work.

Chinchay’s investigation against Goriti revealed Wave of solidarity from various organizations Such as Reporters Without Borders, the Rapporteur on Freedom of Expression of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, the Global Network of Investigative Journalists, the Foreign Press Association in Peru and others, who call on the Attorney General’s Office to immediately drop the investigation into Gorriti.

“Removing the confidentiality of their telephone communications violates the protection of journalists’ sources.” The purpose of this investigation is to prevent journalists from investigating corruption plaguing the political elite under penalty of putting themselves in the dock. “Motivated by political motives, as it also targets two anti-corruption prosecutors, this investigation undermines judicial independence in a country mired in institutional crisis,” Reporters Without Borders said in a statement about Goriti. Has happened.”