Court upholds Berenson conviction

[JohnLocke]

Court upholds Berenson conviction
Thursday, November 2, 2004
BBC News
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Latin America's top human rights court has upheld the conviction in Peru of a U.S. citizen, Lori Berenson, on terrorism charges.
The Inter-American Court of Human Rights ruled that Berenson's 20-year prison term still stood, Peru's President Alejandro Toledo said. The decision means the 35-year-old American will remain in prison until a fortnight after her 46th birthday.
Berenson was convicted for assisting rebels. She maintains her innocence.
She had asked the Costa Rica-based Inter-American Court of Human Rights to overturn her conviction, with her legal team arguing she was not given a fair trial in Peru.
any Peruvians consider her a terrorist and President Toledo welcomed the court's decision.
(...)
Peru's constitutional court declared the country's anti-terrorism laws illegal last year, paving the way for retrials for more than 2,000 convicted left-wing rebels.
Ever since then, President Toledo - South America's least popular leader - has been under enormous pressure to show that he is tough on terror, says the BBC's South America correspondent Elliott Gotkine.
Berenson was originally arrested in 1995 and sentenced to life behind bars by a military tribunal the following year.
That sentence was reduced to 20 years by a civil court in 2001.
The court found her guilty of collaborating with the left-wing Tupac Amaru rebel group in a 1995 plot to attack Peru's congress.
Berenson has previously ruled out serving her sentence in a US jail, because she claims she is innocent.
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Read the rest here.
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Morons. :grr:
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[Lucky Luciano]

1. I have heard of her story....

I think she did actually hang with the Tupac Amarus...whether she actually participated in terrorism is hard to say, but may not be 100% innocent either. I do not know the details tyo give a full judgment though.

[4morewars]

2. At one of her trials...

the "judge" was wearing a hood !!! That's one notch above a kangaroo suit.

[Lucky Luciano]

3. yea....

that is a dodgy issue.....What would you do if many of the judges that did not wear hoods had their entire families carbombed etc...that happens a lot....many Colombian judges suffered those fates for prosecuting drug dealers...the same probably happened in Peru...If I were the judge, I might want a little anonymity so I don't get bombed or shot, stabbed, or whatever. Though, it is of course a shame that the judges feel that danger since it does hurt the judicial process to say the least.

[Ima]

4. photo

[Moderator]

5. Duplicate

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=1038887