Peru Convicts Montesinos in Spy Case

By The Associated Press | New York Times

July 1, 2002

LIMA, Peru (AP) -- A judge on Monday convicted Vladimiro Montesinos, the power broker who allegedly oversaw a criminal empire during ex-President Alberto Fujimori's government, of illegally controlling Peru's spy agency and sentenced him to more than nine years in prison.

Judge Saul Pena issued the tough sentence against Montesinos, 57, for illegally taking control of the National Intelligence Service while he was an adviser to the spy agency. Prosecutors had only requested a seven-year sentence.

It was just the first ruling of more than 70 criminal accusations, ranging from extortion to running a death squad, facing Montesinos more than a year and half after a bribery scandal involving the spymaster triggered the collapse of Fujimori's decade-long authoritarian rule.

A court secretary read the verdict in a makeshift courtroom at a naval base outside Lima where Montesinos is being held in a maximum-security prison.

Pena fined Montesinos the equivalent of $2.8 million in addition to the sentence of nine years and four months.

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