A court in Peru has revoked parole for American activist Lori Berenson. It orders that she be captured and sent back to prison to finish the last five years of her 20-year prison sentence for aiding leftist rebels.The BBC refers to her as a 'rebel' in their account.
Berenson was initially accused of being a leader of the Tupac Amaru, known by the Spanish initials MRTA, which bombed banks and kidnapped and killed civilians in the 1980s and 1990s — though it was nowhere near as violent as the better-known Shining Path insurgency.
When she was arrested in November 1995 with the wife of the group's leader, prosecutors said Berenson was helping plot a takeover of Peru's Congress. The alleged plot was thwarted in a gunbattle at a rebel hideout rented in Berenson's name.
During her travels, she is believed to have made contact with the Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement, or MRTA, a Marxist rebel group active in Peru in the 1980s and 1990s.
Tupac Amaru guerrillas became notorious for taking more than 70 people hostage in the Japanese ambassador's residence in Lima in 1996 and holding them for 126 days.
Ms Berenson was arrested after she gained access to the Peruvian Congress on false journalist credentials alongside the wife of MRTA leader Nestor Cerpa.
Military prosecutors accused her of gathering information for a rebel plot to kidnap members of Congress and exchange them for imprisoned rebel leaders.
Maloney has been working with the Peruvian Government in an effort to get them to grant Lori a new trial, this time before a civilian court, that will afford her due process. However, Maloney has not been able to work out an acceptable situation for Lori, so she is asking Secretary of State Madeleine Albright for her help. One hundred and seventy five Members of Congress, both Republicans and Democrats, have signed on to a letter to Albright, asking that she join the effort to get Lori a new trial.
Activist Lori Berenson walked out of prison smiling Thursday but got a chilly reception from her new neighbors after serving three-quarters of a 20-year sentence for aiding leftist rebels.If she's recognized her errors, then why is she going to work for a far-left, America-hating group?
Now 40, the New Yorker spent more than a third of her life behind bars — getting married, giving birth, undergoing back surgery — but never denouncing the Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement she was convicted of abetting.
When she was arrested in November 1995 with the wife of the group's leader, prosecutors said Berenson was helping it plot a takeover of Peru's Congress that never happened. The following month, police found a forged ID card bearing her photo in a raid on a rebel safe house.
But Berenson apparently became less strident over the years, many of them spent in frigid prisons in the high Andes. Documents her defense team provided to the judge who granted her parole Tuesday said Berenson had "recognized she committed errors" getting involved with the rebels.
A year after Berenson's arrest, the Tupac Amaru gained notoriety when 13 of its members stormed the Japanese ambassador's residents and seized hostages. Among their demands was Berenson's release. The standoff ended 126 days later with all the rebels killed.No doubt when this maggot returns to America she'll be feted on the talk-show and lecture circuits and will be eagerly courted by publishers.
Berenson's release Thursday from Santa Monica women's prison was a tempest in itself. She squeezed through a horde of reporters into a car driven by her husband and attorney, Anibal Apari, to be driven to the Lima apartment where she is to reside.
Two Peruvian reporters jumped into the car, which had a minor collision a block away with a TV channel's vehicle.
Their couple's son, Salvador, who has been living with his mother since his birth a year ago, was taken to the apartment separately by Berenson's parents, who flew in from New York City on Wednesday.
The judge who granted Berenson parole said she must stay in Lima until her sentence ends in November 2015. But Peru's justice minister, Victor Garcia, told the Radioprogramas network Thursday that the Cabinet could decide to commute the sentence and expel Berenson.
"This is a really nasty situation for Peruvians," Garcia said, suggesting the government was not necessarily pleased Berenson had been paroled. President Alan Garcia said Tuesday that it was not his place to comment on whether he considered the judge's decision appropriate.
It was unclear whether any other legal problems could complicate Berenson's eventual return to the United States. U.S. Embassy spokesman James Fennell said he could not comment on the case due to privacy laws.
Many Peruvians were unhappy with Berenson's release.
"Go away, terrorist!" shouted 42-year-old Carol Philips as Berenson and Apari pushed their way through a throng of journalists to get into the apartment building in the upscale Miraflores neighborhood where Berenson is to live.
Her parents told The Associated Press they came not just for the joy of their daughter's release but also to help childproof the apartment.
"I don't know whose idea it was to put this terrorist here as a neighbor," said another neighbor, Rene Vela.
Berenson appeared calm, almost bemused, as she sat for some five minutes in the Apari's car outside the apartment. She wore dangling bead earrings, a khaki green button-down shirt with the sleeves rolled up and carried a black bag with blue straps.
She did not speak to reporters.
The Miraflores district mayor, Manuel Macias, told reporters Berenson should find a home elsewhere.
"The way out of this perhaps is for her expulsion from the country," he said.
The judge who paroled Berenson said she had "completed re-education, rehabilitation and re-socialization" and demonstrated "positive behavior."
Berenson has long maintained she was a political prisoner and not a terrorist. She shouted to reporters in her first public appearance after her November 1995 arrest: "There are no criminal terrorists in the MRTA. It is a revolutionary movement."
New York radical Lori Berenson was sprung from a Peruvian prison yesterday after serving 15 years for aiding revolutionaries.So nice to see she'll be spending time with the far-left Office of the Americas. Nothing like staying close to your roots.
A judge in Lima said she had "completed re-education, rehabilitation and re-socialization" and demonstrated "positive behavior."
"I'm just amazed that it happened," her jubilant mother, NYU Professor Rhoda Berenson, told The Post.
"She knew and we knew that she deserved it. We're just happy they followed their own laws and did what was required."
She spoke to her daughter after getting the news via text message from someone in the courtroom.
"It's been very hectic since we got the news," Rhoda said at the family's East Side home.
"We have been trying to get her out from behind bars for 14½ years, so its been a lot of 'try this, try that.' "
Berenson's father Mark, a college professor in New Jersey, was overjoyed.
"I let out a shout that I think my daughter heard in Peru," he said.
He and his wife have been working tirelessly toward getting Berenson out of jail.
"There are lots and lots of people around the world who have helped us and who have been working so hard for Lori to be released," her mom said.
One of the conditions for Lori's parole is that she remain in Peru until 2015, the year her 20-year sentence is up.
She is expected to be freed before the end of the week and will work as a translator at the nonprofit Office of the Americas.
The 40-year-old left-wing activist was represented at her parole hearing by her lawyer husband, Anibal Apari Sanchez, a former member of the insurgent Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement, or MRTA.
The Office of the Americas is a non-profit organization dedicated to furthering the cause of international justice and peace through broad based educational programs. Founded in 1983 in Los Angeles, the Office of the Americas is a recognized source of documentation and analysis of current international events with a focus on the foreign policy of the United States.Here are their current campaigns.
Through its public education campaign, the Office of the Americas works to reach constituencies of students, religious and human rights organizations and all others concerned about issues of international justice and peace. Our goal is to end the long-standing international culture of militarism.
Help civilian victims of the US occupation of IraqWe work to facilitate community actions that directly benefit injured Iraqi children and their families.The have a rather interesting recommended reading list.
Witness Against Torture: Shut Down Guantanamo action
Watch this 6 minute video by Danny Burns about the witness in Washington, DC on that took place on April 18th.
Lori Berenson, a U.S. citizen serving a 20-year sentence in Peru for aidingGreat. One would hope she's barred from re-entering this country but somehow I suspect she'll be back and on the lecture and book circuit before long. She'll probably wind up as a blogger at the Huffington Post or a special adviser to the Obama administration.leftist guerrillasterrorists, arrived in Lima on Friday after years in remote prisons to get health care during a complicated pregnancy.
Berenson, 39, is five months pregnant. Authorities worried about her age and a back problem transferred her from a prison in Cajamarca, in the north, to one in Peru's capital, where she will stay until her baby is born.
Surrounded by police and reporters, Berenson was shuffled into a justice department building in the city's center, where officials said she will undergo a health examination before being moved to the Santa Monica women's prison.
"She has come from Cajamarca because she has health problems and because of her pregnancy," a government official said.
Berenson has been in jail for more than 13 years, many of them high in the Andes mountains.
She was arrested in 1995 on charges of being a leader of the Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement, or MRTA, a leftist insurgency that was active in Peru in the 1980s and 1990s.
A military judge jailed her for life, but under pressure from the United States, a civilian court retried her and sentenced her to 20 years. She could be paroled next year.
Isn't being four weeks pregnant a bit to early to make such an announcement?The doctor at the Peruvian prison where Lori Berenson is serving a 20-year sentence for collaborating with leftist rebels says the New York native is four weeks pregnant.
Prison doctor Miguel Gaitan Cabellos says the pregnancy was detected during a series of medical tests on Berenson's ailing back and abdomen.
Her father, Mark Berenson, says he and his wife are "euphoric" - and their daughter "sounded very excited" during a recent phone call.
The 38-year-old U.S. citizen was arrested in 1995 on charges of being a leader of the Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement and plotting a thwarted attack on Peru's Congress. A military tribunal sentenced her to a life term in 1996 but a civilian retrial in 2001 shortened the sentence to 20 years.
