[News] Lori Berenson: American in Peru Prison Sees Little Hope

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American in Peru Prison Sees Little Hope
Wed Oct 6,11:31 AM ET

By RICK VECCHIO, Associated Press Writer

CAJAMARCA, Peru - Lori Berenson, the 34-year-old New Yorker jailed in Peru 
for collaboration with Marxist guerrillas, holds little hope that an 
expected international court ruling in her favor will get her out of prison 
before she turns 45.

"I presume a new trial will be ordered," she said recently during visitor's 
day at Huacariz penitentiary, where she is serving a 20-year sentence. "I 
just don't think any judge in his right mind would give me a lighter 
sentence. It's just too political a case."

The Inter-American Court of Human Rights is expected to rule in November 
whether Berenson received a fair civilian retrial in 2001. Peru had hoped 
the televised proceedings would show off its improved justice system after 
the fall a year earlier of authoritarian President Alberto Fujimori.

The retrial stood in sharp contrast to the sham trial she received nine 
years ago, when hooded military judges in a secret proceeding denied her a 
chance to present evidence or cross-examine witnesses and sentenced her to 
life without parole.

But her defense team, led by former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark, 
argued her retrial was still based on Fujimori's draconian anti-terrorism 
laws and failed to meet international standards for due process. She was 
improperly tried twice for the same crime, Clark said, and faced hostile 
judges who relied on coerced testimony and tainted evidence from the 
earlier military trial.

Peruvians first saw Berenson soon after her arrest in November 1995, when 
Fujimori identified her as a leader in a foiled plan to seize Peru's 
Congress and exchange hostages for imprisoned members of the Tupac Amaru 
Revolutionary Movement, known as the MRTA.

Days later, she made a screaming declaration on television in defense of 
the now-dormant guerrilla group. With fists clenched at her sides, she 
angrily shouted: "There are no criminal terrorists in the MRTA. It is a 
revolutionary movement."

Ever since, Berenson, who denies involvement in any takeover plot, has 
tried to shake the popularly held image of a frustrated radical who came to 
Peru looking for a revolution.

Wearing a blue sweat shirt with a frayed collar over a turtleneck, a long, 
dark skirt and tattered black shoes, Berenson spoke in an easy, 
matter-of-fact manner.

"I think the Peruvian people still have this memory of me as this violent 
terrorist," she said, her face framed by wire-rimmed glasses and dangling 
black bead earrings. "As long as I'm associated with terrorism, I'll be in 
prison for the next 11 years."

Berenson writes opinion pieces about globalization and human rights and 
works in the bakery at the prison 350 miles north of the capital, Lima. 
What meager profits she earns she gives to other inmates who cannot afford 
attorneys, said her father, New York college professor Mark Berenson.

Her case is a touchy issue for President Alejandro Toledo, whose 10 percent 
approval rating ranks him as the least popular elected leader in Latin 
America.

His opponents have stirred public fears that the Costa Rica-based court 
will order Berenson's release and set a precedent to free hundreds of 
convicted rebels — a scenario Berenson described as a "humorous" example of 
how her case continues to be manipulated for political ends.

Government attorneys are counting on the human rights court to reject 
Berenson's double jeopardy argument and follow the lead of the 
Inter-American Commission on Human Rights in Washington, which in 2002 
recommended Peru "restore" Berenson's rights, but did not explicitly say 
she should be released.

Javier Ciurlizza, a Peruvian human rights attorney, said that the 
Inter-American court could order Berenson's release, but that he believed 
it would more likely give Peru leeway to try her for a third time.

Berenson, who describes herself as a prisoner of conscience, said Peruvians 
have not come to grips with the social injustice that spawned 20 years of 
political violence.

A government-appointed truth commission last year blamed the Maoist Shining 
Path insurgency and security forces for most of nearly 70,000 deaths 
between 1980 and 2000. The MRTA accounted for less than 2 percent of the 
killings.

In her second trial, Berenson testified she dropped out of the 
Massachusetts Institute of Technology to travel to Central America, where 
she worked as a personal secretary to a Salvadoran guerrilla commander 
during peace talks.

She admitted renting a house in Lima in 1995 used by the MRTA as a hide-out 
and interviewing lawmakers in Congress with a photographer who was really 
the wife of a top guerrilla leader.

Berenson, who was an accredited but unpublished journalist for two 
left-leaning U.S. magazines, maintains she did not know the rebels' true 
identities until after her arrest.

But Berenson, who condemns terrorism, has steadfastly refused to condemn 
the MRTA, whose members have been her best friends during her 
incarceration. Last year, she married Anibal Apari, 41, a paroled MRTA 
member whom she met when both were serving time in a different prison.

"I'm not embarrassed by my political views," she said. "I'm not ashamed 
that I'm a leftist."

Copyright © 2004 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. The information 
contained in the AP News report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten 
or redistributed without the prior written authority of The Associated Press.

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