ROME -- Peru’s parliament unanimously voted to ask the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) to annul their controversial hiring of Peruvian former first lady Nadine Heredia as head of its liaison office in Geneva, and subsequently threatened to withdraw their country’s ambassador to the UN agency, government sources said Friday.

 The Peruvian parliament counted 118 votes in favour of asking the FAO to retract their decision, and received zero votes against it, after the ex-first lady left Peru Tuesday for Europe -- despite having been previously banned from leaving.

 Nadine Heredia had been banned from leaving the country from June until October of this year due to investigations into corruption and money laundering -- for allegedly receiving illegal payments from Brazilian construction firms and from Venezuela while her husband Ollanta Humala was running for president from 2006-2011.

 During the parliamentary debate, the Fuerza Popular politician Héctor Becerril said that the appointment of Heredia to the role was deliberately orchestrated by the ex-first lady and the ex-Brazilian minister José Graziano da Silva, now head of the FAO, to give her diplomatic immunity.

 Carlos Bruce, a spokesperson of Peruanos por el Kambio (Peruvians for Change) said that “the government has been vocal in asking the FAO to annul this appointment -- the position of the government is the position of the Peruvian state, but parliament represents the people and this is a demonstration that not only the state but also the people are asking the FAO to go back on their hiring of Heredia.”

 Another Peruvian politician Mauricio Mulder said that “this is an international mafia that is concealing those accused of money laundering linked to Brazil.”

 The Peruvian president of the cabinet Fernando Zavala said that the government is evaluating retracting their country's representative to the UN orgnanization. 

 The prime minister said to "Canal N" that "this is something that we evaluating and it features amongst our possibilities. Obviously we do not want to impact some things we do with the FAO. But this is something that really does not seem correct and could have other repercussions."

 Zavala said that right thing to have done for Graziano would have been to consult the Peruvian government about the decision. 

 nkd