LIMA (AP) — Former Peruvian President Pedro Castillo is facing a request from the Office of the Prosecutor to extend his initial prison sentence to 18 months while he is being investigated for crimes of rebellion and conspiracy over the Dec. 7 coup attempt.

Castillo remains in initial detention for 7 days, which ends this Wednesday, but he must remain in jail until the Court decides whether or not to accept the Attorney’s Office’s request.

A judge must hold a hearing within 48 hours to hear the Prosecutor’s Office arguments and the former president’s defense and then decide whether or not to apply preventive detention against Castillo.

Hours earlier, a Supreme Court panel had ratified Castillo’s seven-day detention by rejecting an appeal he had filed in an attempt to overturn the court order that jailed him.

The court’s argument for rejecting the appeal and ratifying the arrests was that Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said that Castillo summoned him to ask for political asylum and was going to the Mexican embassy in Lima when he was arrested. The Prosecutor’s request also considers this argument.

The initial prison order included former Prime Minister of Peru Aníbal Torres, who is in hiding.

Castillo, 53, was arrested last Wednesday after announcing in a televised message the dissolution of Congress and intervention in various public entities without providing legal backing.

The former president had called on his followers to come to the police headquarters where he was being held at 13:42 (1841 GMT) Wednesday to receive him after his release.

At his appeal hearing, Castillo argued that he would not renounce the reasons the people gave him and urged the Armed Forces to lay down their arms and stop killing civilians.

“I was detained unjustly and arbitrarily (…). I will never leave or ignore the popular destination that has brought me here (…). From here I want to urge the TNI and Polri to lay down their weapons and stop killing these people who are thirsty for justice,” he said in a virtual connection, interrupted by judges, and asked to stick to legal arguments.

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Outside the prison, Castillo’s attorney read a letter from the former president in which he blamed President Dina Boluarte for the deaths that occurred during the demonstrations. The current head of state is the vice president and takes over the government successively after Congress removed Castillo for the attempted coup on December 7.

“Lady Dina, look at the place she is occupying. I hold you and your entire circle that accompanies you responsible for the vicious attack on my colleague, ”the former president said in this letter.

A day earlier, in another letter, he said he was “in the most difficult situation of my government, humiliated, out of touch, abused and kidnapped” and described Boluarte as a usurper.

These messages have been replicated on the former president’s social networks.

Boluarte said that he couldn’t believe that this expression was from Castillo. “I think the words that came out on President Castillo’s Twitter were not his words. They continue to use it, they continue to manipulate the president,” he said after visiting a girl in a health center in Lima who was injured in one of the clashes in the Andahuaylas area, in the Apurímac region, about 757 kilometers from the national capital.

Since the change of government, protests have continued, with six people killed and injured, according to the Ombudsman’s Office, in addition to damage to various corporate and state property. The demonstrators demanded the closure of Parliament, early elections, the resignation of Boluarte and some of Castillo’s freedoms.