Living in Peru : your everyday companion

Members of the Shining Path guerrilla movement, including their leader Abimael Guzman (2nd row C), listen to their sentence Photo: Poder Judicial

(LIP-nk) – A bloody chapter in Peru's history was closed on Friday when Abimael Guzman, leader of Peru's infamous terrorist group, the “Shining Path” (Sendero Luminoso), was sentenced to life in prison.

The judges followed the recommendation of the prosecution and the victims relatives. Guzman's partner, Elena Iparraguirre, also received life behind bars.

The verdict was handed down by a civil tribunal that deals with terrorism cases, and delivered at the naval base in the city of Callao near Lima.

The sentencing marks "a milestone in the fight for obtaining truth and justice for the victims of armed internal conflict," said a spokesman from Peru's leading rights monitor, the Commission of Human rights (COMISEDH).

Some 70,000 people died in the 12-year war with the Shining Path, which ended in 2000.

Relatives of victims of Peru's internal war with the Maoist insurgent group were present to hear the verdicts handed down to Guzman and nine other leaders of the group. The defendants were variously charged with crimes of terrorism, homicide, and damage to the Peruvian state.

The verdict comes 11 months after proceedings began in the top-security prison of Callao, where Guzman and most of his partners have been imprisoned since 1992.

Leading members of the Shining Path were previously sentenced in a military court empowered by former president Alberto Fujimori (1990-2000), but a Constitutional Court later annulled those rulings.

The military tribunal condemned Guzman to life imprisonment where he spent a number of years in total isolation before the sentence was lifted in 2003.

Guzman, a former philosophy professor, is 71-years old. During the Shining Path's heydays, Guzman was known as President Gonzalo.

His charisma inspired loyalty among an army that had amassed 10,000 fighters by the time of his capture in 1992.

Prior to Friday's announcement, Guzman's lawyer, Manuel Fajardo, told RPP radio that: "the judgment of life imprisonment for Abimael Guzmán Reynoso is already written due to political pressures."

Fajardo has argued that Guzman should be tried not for terrorism but for the lesser charge of rebellion.

Relatives of Shining Path's victims stand outside the high security courtroom during sentencing Photo: REUTERS/Pilar Olivares

"There are deaths in every war. The basic rule of war is to annihilate the forces of the enemy," Guzman's attorney, Manuel Fajardo, told The Associated Press on Thursday.

Last year, Guzman told the court: "I am a revolutionary combatant and totally reject being a terrorist." Guzman's band had sought to convert Peru into a communist country.

A truth commission appointed in 2003 deemed the Shining Path responsible for more than half of the some 70,000 deaths and disappearances which occurred during Peru's 12-year struggle with insurgents.

The trial covered a long list of brutal murders, bombings, and massacres, including the Path's notorious slaughter of 69 children and adults in the village of Lucanamarca in 1983.

Guzman's lawyer told The AP he would not stop fighting for his client's freedom.

"We will exhaust everything in our reach for Abimael to go free," Fajardo said. "We can appeal to the highest court nationally and, if necessary, take our case international" to the Inter-American Court of Human Rights.

Since Guzman's capture, the Shining Path has gradually reduced its activities, though some factions are said to still be protecting cocaine-traffickers and growers in Peru's jungle regions.

- related articles -

- Peru Rebels to Hear Verdicts on Charges (by Carla Salazar, AP / CBS News)

- Verdict due in Shining Path trial (by BBC News)

- read all previous LIP articles on this topic

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