Peruvian Guilty - Prosecuting Montesinos

[La_Serpiente]

Peruvian Guilty - Prosecuting Montesinos

The first of many trials for Vladimiro Montesinos.

By Jason Felch

LAST MARCH, VLADIMIRO LENIN MONTESINOS, Peru's former chief of intelligence, was escorted into a small courtoom for sentencing. The trial that had just ended was only the first of dozens of public trials Montesinos was scheduled to face. The bomb-proof courtroom was inside a high-security prison in the outskirts of Lima. Snipers dotted the rocky hills surrounding the prison, scanning the route of the armored helicopter that transported the prisoner to and from his jail a few miles away.

In the courtroom, the 58-year-old Montesinos took a seat next to his codefendant and ex-lover, a buxom 34-year-old redhead named Jacqueline Beltran (“Jacquie” in the Peruvian press). During the previous month, prosecutors had laid out evidence that Montesinos, a key advisor to President Alberto Fujimori during the 1990s, had used his influence to secure the release of Jacquie's brother, who had been imprisoned on drug charges. A three-judge panel entered the courtroom and sat beneath its only decorations, a Peruvian flag and a crucifix. The lead judge explained that, by law, the evidence against the now-convicted defendants had to be read to them before they could be sentenced.

Montesinos and Jacquie stood and, an hour and 37 minutes into the reading, he began to sway. An odd grimace crossed his face, his knees buckled, and Montesinos collapsed to the floor. The first to reach him was his attorney, who ran to his side with apparently genuine concern. Next to arrive were police guards, who picked up the defendant and sat him in a chair. As Jacquie looked on with a skeptical smirk, a doctor examined Montesinos and declared him unfit to continue. Over the prosecution's objections, the judges agreed to postpone the sentencing for five days.

more...

Peruvian Guilty - Prosecuting Montesinos