(IPYS/IFEX) – On 2 November 1998, on appeal, the Supreme Court in the Tax and Customs Court system confirmed a lower court verdict which had been recently handed down against former Frecuencia Latina/Channel 2 television station owner Baruch Ivcher Bronstein and nine of his associates in the Productos Paraíso del Perú mattress company. The ten […]
(IPYS/IFEX) – On 2 November 1998, on appeal, the Supreme Court in the Tax
and Customs Court system confirmed a lower court verdict which had been
recently handed down against former Frecuencia Latina/Channel 2 television
station owner Baruch Ivcher Bronstein and nine of his associates in the
Productos Paraíso del Perú mattress company. The ten were found guilty of
evading taxes and duties in a trial which began in September 1998 (see IFEX
alerts.) The defendants’ lawyer, Armando Lengua Balbi, said the
international warrant for the arrest of Ivcher and the nine is, therefore,
still in effect. IPYS points out that the Peruvian government has asked
Interpol to capture Ivcher.
**Updates IFEX alerts of 16 September, 2 September, 18 August and 6 July
1998. For background to other cases against Ivcher, see IFEX alerts of 27
October 1998 (adulterating books); 15 July, 6 July 1998 and other 1998
alerts, and 19 September 1997 (Channel 2/citizenship revoked)**
Lengua commented, “Even with all the arbitrariness and irregularities
throughout the Tax Court proceedings, the Supreme Court said there were no
grounds to annul the verdict.” Lengua said that in its verdict the highest
tax court ignored the original way in which this trial was opened and the
defendants’ multiple requests to annul the proceedings. According to
Lengua, the original circumstances under which this trial was opened should
have caused the case to have summarily been thrown out, since when there
are allegations of tax evasion the law stipulates that the national tax
administration body (the Superintendencia Nacional de Administracion
Tributaria, SUNAT) must first be approached. Criminal Tax Law number 813,
Articles 7, 8 and 9 says that the police force, the Interior Ministry and
the judiciary, when they become aware of tax evasion allegations, must
first ask SUNAT to intervene before a trial can be opened. This was never
done. With the trial open and the ªªp
SUNAT did not, as a first step, independently endorse a trial going ahead,
said Lengua.
Lengua believes that “the Supreme (Tax) Court rushed to confirm the
sentence before the visit of the Inter American Commission on Human
Rights,” which will be in Peru in the next few days to assess the human
rights situation.
