MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Peru: Montesinos given 19-year sentence concurrent with time served

By pleading guilty, Montesinos avoided a sentence that would have added more years to his prison term

Former Peruvian strongman Vladimiro Montesinos was sentenced to 19 years in prison Wednesday for his involvement in a 1992 massacre under then-President Alberto Fujimori (1990-2000) who has been banned for 9 months from leaving the country.

Montesinos, a former aide of Fujimori's, was sentenced on Wednesday to 19 years and 8 months in prison for the Pativilca and La Cantuta massacres, both committed in 1992 by the undercover military group Colina.

Presiding Judge Miluska Cano of the Fourth National Superior Criminal Court specified that Montesinos' sentence was deemed “compurgitated” (already served) because the defendant has been in prison since January 2001. Therefore, Montesinos is to remain in jail until 2026 when he serves out his current sentence. By pleading guilty, Montesinos avoided a sentence that would have added more years to his prison term.

The Public Prosecutor's Office had requested 25-year sentences for Fujimori and 21 other defendants in the case who, unlike Montesinos, did not accept the legal figure of “anticipated conclusion” and whose trial will therefore move on.

In his plea, Montesinos acknowledged that the killings were committed by a death squad that was a clandestine army detachment called the Colina Group. The team reported to Montesinos, who insisted was acting on Fujimori's orders. However, Fujimori told the court that he knew nothing about the Colina Group's criminal operations despite his 25-year sentence in 2009 as the perpetrator of the La Cantuta and Barrios Altos massacres, which showed he was the head of the chain of command.

Last month, Fujimori was released from jail after Peru's Constitutional Court reinstated a presidential pardon granted to him by Pedro Pablo Kuczynski.

Montesinos came to power in 1990 under Fujimori. As a captain, he was expelled from the army in the 1970s for selling military secrets. He then worked as a lawyer defending drug traffickers. Fujimori made him the most powerful person in his government after himself. He was listed as an advisor but was instead the de facto head of the intelligence services and the armed forces.

The prosecution had requested in these proceedings that Fujimori be placed under house arrest, which would amount to “more than a pre-trial detention,” according to the former head of state who is currently 85 years old and “a high-risk patient.”