In an extraordinary turn of events, Carlos Américo Ramos Heredia, the Fiscal de la Nación, was dismissed from office on 13 May, scarcely a year since his appointment to the highest legal office in the land. He is the first Fiscal de la Nación to be dismissed in the Republic’s history.

By five votes to one, the National Magistrates Council (Consejo Nacional de la Magistratura, CNM) found Ramos Heredia guilty of misconduct on three counts: persecution of the anticorruption prosecutor Luis Checa Matos who had been investigating the regional president César Álvarez; providing legal cover to another senior prosecutor, Dante Farro, who had supported Álvarez; and lying about the content of a meeting he had had with the detainee Rodolfo Orellana Rengifo.

Ramos may present an action to challenge the decision before the Constitutional Tribunal and, if unsuccessful, has threatened to take his case to the Inter-American Commission of Human Rights (IACHR). However, for many observers his dismissal is a victory for the fight against corruption in Peru.

Ramos’s fall from grace may be spectacular but comes as little surprise to close observers. All of the violations considered by the CNM occurred while Ramos was Prosecutor of Internal Control, between February 2011 and May 2014. Indeed, his appointment in May 2014 led to a high profile clash between Peru’s two most powerful judicial bodies, the Constitutional Tribunal and the CNM.

A shadow has long hung over Ramos and in particular over his dealings with the Ancash regional president César Álvarez, under investigation for alleged corruption, violence and the death of nine political opponents. In his previous position as Prosecutor for Internal Control, Ramos summarily disciplined four anti-corruption prosecutors who had raided an alleged eavesdropping operation in which employees of the regional president were supposed to have monitored his opponents. The anticorruption prosecutors were dismissed by Ramos despite having a judicial order to proceed with the raid on the so-called “switchboard”.

His personal relationship to the executive, (he is cousin to the First Lady Nadine Heredia) may have served to shield him from scrutiny until now. The decision by the CNM was also heavily influenced by the findings of a report by the Prosecutor Marita Barreto on the Orellana criminal network case. Barreto revealed that Ramos had personally received between $10,000 and $30,000 to support the Orellana network from his position as head of the Ministerio Público, the public prosecution service. Orellana, currently in prison, is accused of being the mastermind behind a criminal network involved in money-laundering and other illegal activities.

A separate legal investigation has since been opened against Ramos into this particular case, with the CNM recommending criminal charges.