LIMA, Peru (AFP) — Hundreds of demonstrators marched in Peru's capital Lima demanding the release of detained former president Pedro Castillo on Saturday following his ouster for allegedly attempting a coup d'etat.

Protesters blocking roads with rocks, logs and burning tires since Friday also called for early elections.

The roadblocks interrupted traffic along the southern Pan-American Highway that links Peru and Chile.

Two days after the failure of his coup attempt, Castillo is sharing a detention center with former president Alberto Fujimori at a police base in Lima.

The prosecution accuses the left-wing rural teacher of rebellion and conspiracy, and a high court ordered him into seven days in preliminary detention.

Meanwhile, the demonstrations fuel uncertainty about the possibility that Boluarte can conclude her term in 2026, as she herself announced upon taking office.

"I voted for Castillo, this Congress does not represent us, we want Castillo freed," Maribel Quispe told AFP, in the march that left the central Plaza San Martin, and included the Prosecutor's Office on its route to Congress.

"We want them to close this corrupt Congress and free Castillo. He made the decision to close Congress because they wouldn't let him work," marcher Sara Medina said.

Castillo 'drugged'
On Friday, Castillo's former chief of staff said that the Peruvian ex-president "could have been induced" by drugs to dissolve Congress and does not remember delivering the national address that led to his downfall.

Congress was supposed to debate Castillo's impeachment on Wednesday on corruption charges, but the president preempted them by announcing in a televised speech that he was dissolving the assembly and would rule by decree.

"There are indications that the president was forced to read the message of dissolution, and whoever wrote the text did so in order to provide an argument for his removal," ex-aide Guido Bellido said on Twitter.

Bellido, who visited his former boss at the Lima police base where he is held while under investigation for rebellion and conspiracy, also questioned Castillo's mental condition.

"The psychological state of P. Castillo when reading the message to the nation shows that he was not in control of his faculties. This suggests that he could have been induced. A toxicological test is urgently needed," he said.

The former rural school teacher won a shock electoral victory over Peru's traditional elites in June 2021.

The charges against him carry a jail term of between 10 and 20 years.