sbp
02-18-2002, 03:13 PM
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/20020218/ts/peru_berenson_dc_3.html
LIMA, Peru (Reuters) - Peru's top appeals court on Monday upheld the 20-year sentence on terrorism charges of Lori Berenson (news - web sites), a U.S. woman convicted of aiding Marxist rebels, exhausting all her legal options in Peru, a senior judge said.
``Her sentence has been confirmed,'' Guillermo Cabala, president of the section of the court which reviewed her ``very complex'' case, told Reuters, adding it was a majority ruling.
He said four of the five judges had wanted the sentence upheld while he had argued for it to be reduced to 15 years.
It was not clear whether Berenson herself, who began a hunger strike on Monday in support of jailed leftist rebels who want the anti-terrorism laws under which they were tried repealed, had been informed of the Supreme Court ruling.
But her father said he was not surprised. Her lawyer has said Berenson, who denies all the charges against her, saying she is no ``terrorist,'' had entertained ``zero expectations.''
``I'm optimistic we'll get her home eventually, hopefully sooner rather than later. I'll be fighting like hell for it,'' Mark Berenson told Reuters from his home in New York.
He said he would petition President Bush (news - web sites), who makes an official visit to Peru on March 23-24, to apply an article of the U.S. penal code to ``come to the rescue of any Americans wrongfully held in a foreign country.''
The Supreme Court ruling exhausts all avenues of appeal in Peru for the 32-year-old New Yorker, arrested in late 1995 and jailed for life as a leader of the Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement (MRTA) by a hooded military judge.
Her conviction was overturned in 2000 and a civil retrial ordered. That court convicted her last June of helping MRTA rebels with whom she lived plot an attack on Congress and sentenced her to 20 years, meaning that with time served, she would be jailed until two weeks after her 46th birthday.
OPTIONS DWINDLE
Berenson's only options now are to pursue a recourse to the Washington-based Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, which can refer her case to the region's top rights court; to hope for a pardon from Peru's President Alejandro Toledo; or to ask to serve her sentence in a U.S. jail.
She has said she will not do this because she considers herself innocent and her trial biased.
``No one can deny that Lori is an apologist for MRTA ideology but she had nothing to do with anything they were doing. There is no evidence of that,'' Mark Berenson said.
``Lori is innocent of what she was charged with. I say that with 100 percent confidence,'' he added.
He said he would not travel to Peru to seek to petition Bush in person, but noted that the president had already raised her case with then president-elect Alejandro Toledo last June.
Bush at that time urged humanitarian factors be taken into consideration in her case. Berenson spent years in freezing, high-altitude Andean jails and says she suffered eye, stomach and joint problems which still trouble her.
Asked if he thought Toledo would pardon her, Mark Berenson said: ``I hope that as an honorable man, he will take a good look at her case. ... He was educated in the United States so he has a different perspective on fairness and due process.''
Polls show most Peruvians view Berenson as a terrorist and remember the image of her after her arrest -- wild eyed, screaming in Spanish and defending the rebels' ideals.
LIMA, Peru (Reuters) - Peru's top appeals court on Monday upheld the 20-year sentence on terrorism charges of Lori Berenson (news - web sites), a U.S. woman convicted of aiding Marxist rebels, exhausting all her legal options in Peru, a senior judge said.
``Her sentence has been confirmed,'' Guillermo Cabala, president of the section of the court which reviewed her ``very complex'' case, told Reuters, adding it was a majority ruling.
He said four of the five judges had wanted the sentence upheld while he had argued for it to be reduced to 15 years.
It was not clear whether Berenson herself, who began a hunger strike on Monday in support of jailed leftist rebels who want the anti-terrorism laws under which they were tried repealed, had been informed of the Supreme Court ruling.
But her father said he was not surprised. Her lawyer has said Berenson, who denies all the charges against her, saying she is no ``terrorist,'' had entertained ``zero expectations.''
``I'm optimistic we'll get her home eventually, hopefully sooner rather than later. I'll be fighting like hell for it,'' Mark Berenson told Reuters from his home in New York.
He said he would petition President Bush (news - web sites), who makes an official visit to Peru on March 23-24, to apply an article of the U.S. penal code to ``come to the rescue of any Americans wrongfully held in a foreign country.''
The Supreme Court ruling exhausts all avenues of appeal in Peru for the 32-year-old New Yorker, arrested in late 1995 and jailed for life as a leader of the Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement (MRTA) by a hooded military judge.
Her conviction was overturned in 2000 and a civil retrial ordered. That court convicted her last June of helping MRTA rebels with whom she lived plot an attack on Congress and sentenced her to 20 years, meaning that with time served, she would be jailed until two weeks after her 46th birthday.
OPTIONS DWINDLE
Berenson's only options now are to pursue a recourse to the Washington-based Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, which can refer her case to the region's top rights court; to hope for a pardon from Peru's President Alejandro Toledo; or to ask to serve her sentence in a U.S. jail.
She has said she will not do this because she considers herself innocent and her trial biased.
``No one can deny that Lori is an apologist for MRTA ideology but she had nothing to do with anything they were doing. There is no evidence of that,'' Mark Berenson said.
``Lori is innocent of what she was charged with. I say that with 100 percent confidence,'' he added.
He said he would not travel to Peru to seek to petition Bush in person, but noted that the president had already raised her case with then president-elect Alejandro Toledo last June.
Bush at that time urged humanitarian factors be taken into consideration in her case. Berenson spent years in freezing, high-altitude Andean jails and says she suffered eye, stomach and joint problems which still trouble her.
Asked if he thought Toledo would pardon her, Mark Berenson said: ``I hope that as an honorable man, he will take a good look at her case. ... He was educated in the United States so he has a different perspective on fairness and due process.''
Polls show most Peruvians view Berenson as a terrorist and remember the image of her after her arrest -- wild eyed, screaming in Spanish and defending the rebels' ideals.