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Peru’s ousted President Pedro Castillo appeared in court Thursday for the first time since he was removed from office, arrested and charged with “rebellion” for trying to shut down the Andean nation’s Congress.

Castillo, the left-wing former schoolteacher, was silent and let his lawyers do most of the talking at the hearing to discuss his arrest after the previous day’s dramatic developments. One of them, Anibal Torres, was his prime minister until the end of November. His other attorney, Víctor Pérez, said Castillo’s speech on Wednesday announcing the closure of Congress “did not constitute a crime of rebellion.”

When the presiding judge gave Castillo the floor at the end of the hearing, he was unusually calm. “That’s all,” he said, wearing the same pale expression and blue jacket he was photographed in when he was first arrested on Wednesday.

“Rebellion is a serious crime,” prosecutor Marco Huamán said at the hearing. “It doesn’t matter if it manages to be a crime.”

The hearing comes after Castillo’s failed gambit to avoid being removed from office by Congress after months of conflict. Hours before lawmakers were scheduled to vote on his impeachment Wednesday, Castillo announced the shutdown of Congress, the formation of an “emergency government” and a nighttime curfew.

The outcry was swift, and much of his cabinet resigned. Moments later, 101 MPs out of 130 voted to impeach Castillo as he fled the palace.

He was then taken into custody at Lima City Hall. Small groups of opponents and supporters demonstrated in front of the building.

Castillo’s Vice President Dina Boluarte was sworn in later Wednesday, becoming Peru’s first female president. She described her predecessor’s actions in the ceremony as “an attempted coup” and vowed to assemble a government “from all denominations”.

Read more about the political crisis in Peru here.