PERU: Lax Sentences Bode Poorly for Fight Against Corruption

By Ángel Páez Reprint | | Print |

Ángel Páez

LIMA, Mar 1 2007 (IPS) - Authorities in Peru expect the Chilean Supreme Court to decide on the extradition request for former Peruvian president Alberto Fujimori (1990-2000), wanted for crimes against humanity and corruption, by the middle of this year.

Authorities in Peru expect the Chilean Supreme Court to decide on the extradition request for former Peruvian president Alberto Fujimori (1990-2000), wanted for crimes against humanity and corruption, by the middle of this year.

But while the authorities seeking Fujimori’s extradition are optimistic that it will be approved, recent court rulings in Peru have handed down lenient sentences for or acquitted people with connections to the crimes of which Fujimori is accused.

The question that many are asking is whether the Peruvian justice system is really ready to hold Fujimori to account.

On Feb. 6, an anti-corruption court acquitted, on the grounds of “lack of evidence,” 23 people accused of helping Fujimori’s notorious former security chief Vladimiro Montesinos stow away millions of dollars in Swiss bank accounts.

The prosecutor general’s office had prosecuted 31 people – including Montesinos’ wife Trinidad Becerra, his daughter Silvana Montesinos, and his former lovers, Grace Riggs and Jacqueline Beltrán – for whom it was seeking sentences of between eight and 10 years.

It was not just another trial. The judges themselves referred to it as “the mother case” because the people in the dock were those who had hidden the enormous amounts of money embezzled by Montesinos during the Fujimori regime.

Montesinos – Fujimori’s “eminence gris” – is serving a 20-year sentence for his involvement in illegal arms sales, and is facing other charges as well.

On Feb. 9, another anti-corruption court handed down sentences of three to four years to 20 members of the military who took part in telephone tapping operations ordered by Montesinos, the de facto head of the National Intelligence Service (SIN), with Fujimori’s full knowledge and approval.

But the spy chiefs were acquitted, including former SIN directors General Julio Salazar and Rear Admiral Humberto Rozas, and the former head of the air force. Because he pleaded guilty, Montesinos received six years in this case.

While Peruvian authorities wait for the Chilean Supreme Court to decide on the extradition request, Fujimori remains under arrest in Chile, where he was taken into custody in late 2005, just after he arrived to Santiago from Japan.

The courts have also been lenient in human rights cases.

On Feb. 14, General Oswaldo Hanke, former head of the army intelligence service (SIE), and Colonel Harry Rivera, former SIE head of counterintelligence, were acquitted in a case of forced disappearance for “lack of evidence.”

In 1988, during the first administration of current President Alan García, the SIE discovered that army second lieutenant Marco Barrantes was selling military secrets to Ecuadorian military attaché Enrique Duchicela. Both were abducted and disappeared.

Barrantes’ family brought legal action, and came up with eyewitnesses who were present when the officer was seized.

In 2004, journalist Ricardo Uceda published the book “Muerte en el Pentagonito: Los cementerios secretos del ejército peruano” (Death in the Little Pentagon: The Secret Killing Fields of the Peruvian Army), which includes testimony from SIE agents confirming the abduction and murder of Barrantes and Duchicela.

Shortly before Hanke and Rivera were absolved this month, former SIE agent Jesús Sosa gave the Barrantes family a written document and an audio tape in which he confessed his participation in the forced disappearance and murder of Barrantes and Duchicela, on Hanke’s orders.

The family handed the evidence over to the court, and with the prosecutor’s support, asked for the former agent’s testimony to be included in the trial. But the judges turned down the request and released Hanke and Rivera, who had declared themselves innocent.

Hanke’s lawyer, César Nakasaki, also happens to be defending Fujimori.

Former agent Sosa was a member of the “Colina” paramilitary group accused of the human rights crimes for which the Peruvian courts want to try Fujimori.

The murder charges faced by the former president, which involve killings by the “Colina” death squad, are based on testimony from former agents like Sosa.

Francisco Soberón, who is leading the “Fujimori Extraditable” civil society campaign, said the three trials held this month set a bad precedent for the case against the former president.

“These verdicts should call our attention to the conduct of the magistrates in the cases of corruption and crimes against humanity,” he told IPS. “The justice system has been weak in punishing those involved in corruption cases, and not all of the sentences handed down in human rights cases have been exemplary. We must stay on the alert.”

A former prosecutor in the Fujimori-Montesinos case, Ronald Gamarra, also expressed concern.

“With these kinds of convictions and acquittals, Fujimori is going to face a badly weakened anti-corruption judicial system. To judge by the last three trials, Fujimori is not going to rule out the possibility that he will come out of this in good shape. The precedents are a very bad signal,” Gamarra commented to IPS.

Human Rights Watch investigator María McFarland, who has closely followed the Fujimori case, said the evidence that has been presented is compelling.

“There are solid arguments indicating that he was responsible,” she told IPS. “So I am confident that the Peruvian justice system will do its part, because the international community will be observing the development of the legal proceedings. Once Fujimori is in court in Peru, we will be watching to see that he receives the appropriate punishment.”

Omar Chehade, the head of the prosecutor’s office extradition unit in the Fujimori-Montesinos case, said the last three verdicts will not influence the Chilean Supreme Court’s decision.

“There are sufficient elements and proof against Fujimori for human rights violations and corruption of officials,” he remarked to IPS.

“The cases are compelling, and the justice system must act in accordance. Although of course if recent sentences are disturbing, then the judiciary will have to respond to the wake-up call,” Chehade added.

“The prosecutor’s office should say something about these light sentences,” said Gamarra. “We must not wait till the last minute to ask why the sentences are so lax – not to mention the surprising acquittals.”