Peru Paroles American Jailed
For Role In Civil War
LIMA - A Peruvian court granted parole to
Lori Berenson, a U.S. citizen who was
imprisoned in 1995 for aiding guerrillas
during the country's civil war, according to
media reports Wednesday.
Berenson, 40, has served 15 years of a
20-year prison sentence in Peru for her
alleged role in a plot to attack the
Peruvian Congress.
She was charged with being a leader of the
Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement (MRTA),
an insurgency active in Peru that launched a
brutal war against the state in 1980. Over
the subsequent two decades nearly 30,000
people died in a bloody civil war.
The judge ordered her to stay in Peru for
five years in order to serve out the
remaining years of her sentence on
conditional release.
Peruvian justice ministry has said it wants
to deport Berenson, but the court said she
must check in with authorities once a month
in Peru.
"We are thrilled and so pleased that the
Peruvian judge ruled that Lori has earned
her conditional liberty, as they call it in
Peru," her mother, Rhoda Berenson, said.
"She and her baby can now start a new life
together."
"This decision is going to be criticized,
but it was well founded," said her husband,
Anibal Apari Sanchez, a former MRTA member
who is a lawyer and represented her at the
hearing. "It's legally impossible for her to
be deported." |
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