Free Republic

Imprisoned former Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori has been pardoned by incumbent leader Pedro Pablo Kuczynski. Mr. Kuczynski's office said in a statement that Fukimori, 79, was being released on health grounds. Fujimori-who was in power from 1990 to 2000-was recently taken from prison to hospital because of low blood pressure and abnormal heart rhythm. He has been serving a 25-year sentence for human rights abuses and corruption..... He was admired by some Peruvians for combating Maoist rebels, whereas his critics consider him a corrupt dictator. Fujimori has been in and out of hospital for a variety of health problems in...

LIMA, Peru (AP) -- Peru's government abused its authority by barring paroled U.S. activist Lori Berenson and her 31-month-old son from leaving the country to spend the holidays in New York City with her family, her lawyer charged Saturday. "Administratively, you can't block a court order," Anibal Apari said after Berenson told The Associated Press that she and her son Salvador were prevented from boarding a flight Friday night despite being granted permission in court.

President Bush had many important foreign policy issues to discuss when he went to Lima, Peru, last weekend, but you wouldn't have known it from watching NBC's weekend "Today" show on Sunday. Because while Bush was talking about narcotics trafficking, trade and international terrorism with Peruvian President Alejandro Toledo, "Today" and other Sunday news shows led with the case of convicted American terrorist Lori Berenson. American media coverage of President Bush's trip to Mexico, Peru and Central America revealed how our media establishment views Latin America. Basically, our journalistic agenda-setters in New York and Washington ignore our neighbors to the...

SAN SALVADOR - U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell said Sunday that Washington may seek clemency for Lori Berenson, a U.S. citizen imprisoned in Peru for terrorist ties, after an international rights panel reviews her case. President George W. Bush raised the case "directly" with Peruvian President Alejandro Toledo during a visit to Peru on Saturday, but did not "make a direct appeal" on her behalf, Powell told reporters as Bush traveled here. "That wouldn't have been appropriate, because we're now waiting for the results of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights," which is looking at the case, he said....

For months, Lori Berenson, New York's most notorious revolutionary tourist, has had her fingers crossed, counting on the Inter-American Court of Human Rights to overturn her 20-year sentence for terrorist activities in Peru. The Lima government also clearly expected a ruling in Berenson's favor — it announced last week that it would defy any order by the Costa Rica-based court that the MIT dropout-turned-sandalista be set free. But guess what? The court has upheld her sentence, imposed after a three-month civilian trial after her first conviction, by a military tribunal, was overturned following pressure from the Clinton administration. The...

Lori Berenson's parents raged last night against a human rights court ruling that will keep their activist daughter in prison for the next 11 years. Mark and Rhoda Berenson, who live in Gramercy Park, said the ruling marked "a tragic day for human rights in the Western Hemisphere and in the world." They faulted the Costa Rica-based Inter-American Human Rights Court's decision to uphold a Peruvian court ruling that declared their activist daughter a Marxist terrorist who conspired in 1995 to overturn the Peruvian government. Berenson was originally tried by a tribunal of hooded judges. It was later found she...

SAN JOSE, Costa Rica (AP) - The Inter-American Court of Human Rights Tuesday refused a request by American Lori Berenson to review its ruling that upheld her 20-year sentence in Peru for terrorism. In a decision issued in November, the Costa Rica-based court - the legal arm of the Organization of American States - rejected Berenson's arguments that Peru violated her rights in a 2001 civilian retrial. It was Berenson's last formal avenue of appeal. The former New York City resident has denied any wrongdoing and maintains she is a political prisoner whose concern for social justice was distorted by...

Lima, Peru -- Lori Berenson, a U.S. citizen jailed in Peru since 1995 for helping leftist rebels, has been granted conditional release, a judge announced Tuesday. Berenson has served nearly 15 years of a 20-year sentence for aiding Peruvian rebels in a 1995 plot to overthrow Peru's congress. Judge Jessica Leon Yarango made the announcement in a televised court hearing after Berenson's lawyer made the request, but did not specify when she would be released. Berenson, 40, who last year gave birth in prison to a son, Salvador, has long maintained her innocence. Her original sentence of life in prison...

LIMA (Reuters) - Lori Berenson, a New Yorker who spent 15 years in Peruvian prisons for aiding Marxist insurgents, will visit the United States as early as this weekend for the first time since her 1995 arrest, officials and her family said on Friday. Berenson, 42, the mother of a 2-year-old boy, was paroled last year after serving most of a 20-year sentence. At the time of her release, Peru's government resisted calls to commute the rest of her sentence so she could return permanently to the United States. Peruvian officials say she must return to Lima by January 11....

Mary Anastasia O'Grady writes in today's Wall Street Journal that George Soros's Open Society Institute has been funding terrorism. In a column entitled Friends of Terror in Peru, O'Grady notes that Thursday's vote by the European Parliament to take the Peruvian guerrilla group known as the Tupac Amaru (aka MRTA) off its terrorist list has Peru in an uproar. For good reason: The MRTA is notorious for kidnapping, torturing and murdering civilians to advance its political agenda. More recently, Peruvian officials have linked it to Hugo Chávez's "Bolivarian Movement," which seeks to destabilize democracies in Latin America, and to the...

LIMA, Peru (AP) — Hugo Chavez has been accused of using Venezuela's oil riches to meddle in Colombia, Argentina, Bolivia and Nicaragua. Now, Peru's president says the Venezuelan leader may be doing it here by funding militants and anti-poverty centers that preach populist revolution. In recent weeks, Peruvian police have arrested nine people the government alleges are militants bankrolled by Venezuela. And the head of a Congressional investigatory committee accused Venezuela of supplying funds to outreach centers he says agitate against the government. President Alan Garcia supports the ongoing investigation into the centers. Venezuela and allies Bolivia and Ecuador "want...

The imprisoned leader of a Peruvian rebel group that was once involved in a lengthy hostage drama says his group has given up armed conflict and now wants to become a political movement. In an interview published in Wednesday's Peru21 newspaper, Victor Polay acknowledged that the Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement has been defeated. "The moment has arrived for the MRTA to actively join the political fight, within the framework of democracy," said Polay, using the group's initials in Spanish. He said he would like authorities to grant amnesty to imprisoned MRTA guerrillas. "I hope there will be a political way...