The gamecock. (Columbia, S.C.) 1908-2006, October 27, 2000, Page 5, Image 5
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Peruvian president leads manhunt
for controversial former spy chief
by Monte Hayes
j Associated Press
LIMA, Peru — Looking like a gener
al directing his troops into battle, Presi
dent Alberto Fujimori shouted orders to
members of an elite police force, de
ploying them in a manhunt for his feared
former intelligence chief.
Vladimiro Montesinos’ unexpected
return from exile in Panama on Monday
has plunged Peru into political turmoil,
and Fujimori was determined to put an
end to it, taking personal command of
the search for the man who was once his
close aide.
But Montesinos, once described as a
man who prefers the night, slipped away
Wednesday as darkness fell over the re
sort town of Chaclacayo, in the foothills
of the Andes 22 miles east of Lima.
‘ I “He has not been found, but the op
eration will continue day and night until
he is lQcated,” a grim-faced Fujimori,
dressed in a black leather jacket, told re
porters who gathered around him on a
dusty side street. “One man alone can
not be allowed to create this kind of cli
mate when we are in a process of tran
sition.”
Fujimori resumed the search before
dawn Thursday, leaving the Government
Palace and returning to Chaclacayo with
his daughter Keiko, his butler and his per
sonal cook, giving the impression he was
settling in for a long stay.
Agrowing number of skeptics ques
tioned Fujimori’s motives for the spec
tacular manhunt. Some said it was a show
to impress Peruvians who have lost trust
in him. Others said Fujimori might be try
ing to help Montesinos win political asy
lum. Montesinos returned unexpected
ly to Peru when Panama refused to grant
him refuge.
“If we looked at it from a Machi
avellian viewpoint, we might think Mon
tesinos is trying to present himself as po
litically persecuted to seek asylum,”
retired army Gen. Daniel Mora said.
The former spy chief, who has not
appeared in public since his return, is
thought to still command the loyalty of
much of the military, and many Peruvians
have speculated that he returned to force
a showdown for power with Fujimori.
Earlier in the day, Fujimori ordered a
“complete freeze” of the armed forces,
confining them to barracks, apparently
in case Montesinos loyalists in the army
tried to come to his defense.
Only minutes before Fujimori an
nounced in Chaclacayo that the at
tempt to capture Montesinos had
failed, the government agreed on a date
to hold new elections for Fujimori’s suc
cessor.
In Lima, an Oiganization of Ameri
can States delegation coaxed Fujimori’s
government and his opponents back to
the bargaining table Wednesday and ham
mered out an agreement to hold special
elections April 8.
Fujimori had announced last month
that he would step down in July 2001,
four years ahead of schedule, after a leaked
videotape showed Montesinos apparently
bribing a lawmaker. Fujimori promised
new elections and said he would not be
a candidate. Within days, Montesinos fled
into exile.
Justice Minister Alberto Bustamante
said Wxinesday the government had with
drawn its demand that new elections be
contingent on a broad amnesty for mili
tary and civilian officials accused of hu
man rights abuses stemming from Peru’s
battle with leftist guerrillas and drug traf
fickers.
Opposition leaders and military an
alysts charged that Montesinos re
turned to use his influence to win laws
granting amnesty from prosecution for
himself and his cronies, who dominate
Peru’s armed forces.
Fujimori had endured an avalanche
of criticism for letting his once-trusted
aide flee Peru a month ago to escape pros
ecution. Fujimori said Wednesday he had
uiged Montesinos not to return to Pe
ru, but instead to go to a neighboring coun
try as a tourist.
Now with Montesinos’ return, the
president decided to hunt down the man
who many say was responsible for his
success in defeating leftist insurgencies,
but who also is blamed for the dirty tricks
and smear campaigns against opponents
which tainted Fujimori’s election to a
third five-year term in May.
Fujimori said Montesinos has an or
ganized network helping him escape cap
ture, a factor that has complicated the
search. He did not elaborate.
On Wednesday afternoon, Fujimori
led a convoy of several dozen vehicles
carrying members of an elite police force
to an army officers club in Chaclacayo,
a hilltown east of Lima where the wealthy
have weekend homes.
Fujimori barked orders and directed
police troopers armed with submachine
guns as they hung onto the sides of ve
hicles that raced through town.
Vowing Montesinos would be tracked
down, Fujimori said: “The police will lo
cate him and he will be turned over to *
judicial authorities.”
Fujimori said no arrest order had been
issued against Montesinos.
“My interest is to locate him to pro
vide tranquility for the country,” he said.
Experts on Peru’s armed forces said
the task of capturing Montesinos may
prove difficult.
“It’s obvious he’s still being protected
by the military. If that were not so, he
would have been captured already,” said
Fernando Rospigliosi, a political scien
tist who is an authority on civilian-mili
tary relations.
He said there are many people who
do not want to see Montesinos arrested.
“I can’t imagine Montesinos detained
and saying things about the entire mili
tary command, about Fujimori,”
Rospigliosi said.
“He is a man who knows too much
about all of them. He’ll escape, or die,
but it seems very unlikely to me that he
will be captured.”
‘He has not been found, but the operation will contin
ue day and night until he is located. One man alone
cannot be allowed to create this kind of climate when
we are in the process of transition.’
Alberto Fujimori
President
Submarine
from page 4
mits, he said.
Up to two-thirds of the crew wei
likely blown to bits by powerful expli
sions in the weapons room in the sul
i-:—
marine’s bow, officials said The Kursk’s
nuclear reactors were automatically shut
down, and there has been no radiation
leak. The reactors were “behaving ide
— ally, ” Spassky said Thursday.
Kuroyedov had warned he might can
cel the recovery effort if experts ruled
e that divers’ lives were in danger.
But President Vladimir Putin
promised to recover tire bodies at an emo
tional meeting with the crew’s relatives
shortly after the disaster, and the gov
ernment seemed bent on conducting the
costly effort despite the shortage of funds
for the military.
“We will do all we can,” Putin said
Thursday at a meeting with officials in
the Kremlin.
Some Russian media have pointed
out that by stubbornly conducting the
risky effort, the government sought to
redeem itself for the confused response
to the sinking of the Kursk, when it re
sisted foreign help for days while
botching its own rescue efforts.
The cause of the disaster remains un
known, with authorities suggesting a col
lision with a Western submarine or Wbrld
War II-era mine or to an internal mal
function.
I
British teen-agers
who killed toddler
eligible for parole
0
■ Boys were 10
when convicted
as adults in 1993
Associated Press
LONDON — Two boys who were
10 years old when they tortured and
killed a toddler in 1993 are now eli
gible for parole, a British court ruled
Thursday, reversing a politician’s de
cision to nearly double their minimum
term.
The two, who were tried as adults,
could be released as early as Febru
ary, Lord Chief Justice Woolf said.
The ruling reversed a decision by
a previous court and a Cabinet min
ister to increase the minimum terms
to be served by Robert Thompson and
John Venables, who were convicted
in 1993.
The victim, 2-year-old James Bul
ger, had been led aWay from a shop
ping mall near Liverpool, tormented
and beaten to death.
Denise Feigus, mother of James,
sobbed as the decision was announced
in the High Court.
Her attorney, Sean Sexton, said
she felt “totally let down by the whole
legal process.”
She had been invited to tell Lord
Woolf how she had been affected by
the murder, but “she wonders now
why she bothered,” Sexton said.
After the boys’ attorneys appealed,
the European Court of Human Rights
ruled in December that Britain vio
lated the rights of the defendants by
trying them as adults. It also agreed
with a 1997 decision by the House of
Lords that former Home Secretary
Michael Howard was wrong in
overruling the trial judge and raising
die minimum prison terms from eight
years to 15 years.
Woolf imposed a new minimum
term that expired immediately, and -
said the Parole Board would decide
when the two could be freed.
“I emphasize that the final deci
sion as to whether they should be
released, and conditions of release, are
the responsibility of the board and
nothing I have said is to interfere with
the board’s discretion,” Woolf said.
He added “it is likely that it would
be after February 2001 before the Pa
role Board could decide whether they
should be released and, if so, for the
necessary arrangements to be made
to enable this to happen.”
Woolf said Thompson and Ven
ables had done everything possible to
redeem themselves following their
“horrendous” crime.
“The one overriding mitigating
feature of the offense is the age of the
two boys when the crime was com
mitted,” Woolf said.
“However grave their crime, the
feet remains that if that crime had been
committed a few months earlier, when
they were under 10, the boys could
not have been tried or punished by the
courts,” Woolf said.
John Dickinson, attorney for Ven
ables, said the decision would spare
the boys from being transferred to a
young offenders institution, which he
described as “a hotbed of violence,
bullying, sexual intimidation and
drugs.”
Howard said he disagreed with
Woolf’s decision.
“I do not believe that it reflects
what the trial judge had described as
the unparalleled evil nature of the of
fense,” Howard said. “My sympa
thy goes out to the parents of James
Bulger.”
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