Activists Investigate Deaths in Peru Raid

In the aftermath of the commando raid in Peru that liberated 71 hostages in a diplomatic compound and left their 14 captors dead, human rights groups and other critics expressed concern Friday about allegations that troops executed some rebels as they lay wounded or tried to surrender.

The human rights group Amnesty International is looking into the deaths of the rebels of the leftist Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement and of a hostage, Supreme Court Justice Carlos Giusti Acuna, according to a spokeswoman in Argentina. The group dispatched an investigator from Argentina to gather information with the help of Peruvian human rights activists, the spokeswoman said Friday.

“The organization calls for exhaustive and impartial investigations of all of the deaths,” Amnesty said in a statement.

Human Rights Watch, another watchdog group active in the Americas, has made a similar appeal.

Feeding confusion and suspicion, there were conflicting accounts Friday of the fate of the guerrillas’ bodies. Some relatives complained that they were denied access to the bodies, prompting a lawyer for one family to allege a cover-up.

A television report asserted that authorities quickly buried the rebels in anonymous graves, but other sources said most of the bodies remained in a morgue.

The criticism clashes with a wave of pride and relief in Peru resulting from the attack ordered by President Alberto Fujimori, who toured the combat-ravaged residence of the Japanese ambassador in the Peruvian capital, Lima, with the Japanese foreign minister Friday.

Fujimori’s order ended a siege that the Tupac Amaru began Dec. 17 by storming a reception at the mansion. The government has said the rebels were gunned down Tuesday afternoon as they fought a gun battle that killed two of the 140 troops who had assaulted the compound through a network of tunnels.

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But questions have arisen about that version of events. A Peruvian firefighter who entered the compound minutes after the shooting stopped told The Times that the guerrillas had been shot in the forehead. And he said commandos told him that they had orders to kill the rebels.

“What surprised us were the bullet wounds in the forehead,” said the firefighter, who asked not to be identified. “We were told there were some alive after the attack. The commandos chose to give them the coup de grace.”

In addition, a Japanese newspaper quoted two former hostages as saying they saw guerrillas captured alive. Other Peruvian and international news reports Friday cited unnamed military and intelligence officials who said the commandos were ordered to kill their adversaries and ignored the pleas of guerrillas who tried to surrender.

But former hostage Rodolfo Munante, the Peruvian agriculture minister, on Friday denied a television report that he had witnessed the execution of a captured rebel.

Fujimori has denied that he gave orders to take no prisoners.

He defended the actions of the commandos, whose adversaries were armed with automatic weapons and explosives and had threatened to kill the hostages if attacked.

“The order was to rescue the 72 hostages safe and sound,” Fujimori said. “We found more resistance than we expected. And faced with an armed terrorist, none of the commandos were going to offer up their chest. . . . The gun battle was more intense than expected.”

Meanwhile, Peruvians took to the Internet to vigorously condemn critics of the raid, according to a human rights activist who monitored the transmissions.

In a nation weary of guerrilla violence, many pro-Fujimori Peruvians accuse human rights groups and leftist politicians of being soft on terrorism.