American Found Guilty of Working With Rebels

An anti-terrorist court Wednesday convicted Lori Berenson, a 31-year-old American, of collaborating with Peruvian guerrillas and sentenced her to 20 years in prison.

Announcing the verdict after a three-month trial, a panel of three judges concluded that Berenson collaborated with the Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement, or MRTA, a leftist group with a history of kidnappings and armed attacks on targets here that included U.S. diplomats. The judges found that Berenson rented a Lima safe house where the rebels trained and kept arms and that she conducted reconnaissance on Peru’s Congress for a planned terrorist attack.

Berenson, who has been in jail since her arrest in late 1995, will be given credit for the more than five years she has already served. She will be eligible for release Nov. 29, 2015. She also must pay a fine of about $30,000.

In a lengthy opinion read in open court, the judges convicted Berenson of terrorist collaboration and illicit association. They said she “collaborated expressly and voluntarily” with the guerrillas and was not a “mere spectator” to their crimes.

In her final statement before the verdict was issued, a poised, bespectacled Berenson denied the charges. She condemned terrorism, though she did not condemn the MRTA. And she apologized for her behavior after her arrest, when police presented her to the media and she launched into a harangue defending the rebels--a wild-eyed image that convinced many Peruvians that she was a zealous revolutionary.

“I am not a terrorist,” Berenson told the court. “That image is not what I wanted to leave. That is not the image of what I am or what I think.”

Berenson, the daughter of college professors from Manhattan, dropped out of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1990, using what was left of her college tuition money to visit Central America.

She came to Peru as a freelance journalist in 1994 but did not publish any articles. Berenson is accused of using her press credentials to scout the Congress for the MRTA’s planned takeover. Before arriving in Peru, she was active in leftist circles in Latin America, working as an aide to a guerrilla leader in El Salvador during that nation’s peace talks.

Wednesday’s verdict ended Berenson’s second trial here and six years of judicial proceedings that provoked decidedly different reactions in the United States and Peru.

In the U.S., the case became a cause for liberal groups that said Berenson had been railroaded by the draconian, corrupt courts of former Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori.

In Peru, Berenson’s exploits stirred a rare consensus in a society that has suffered years of bloody terrorism. Whether they admired or despised Fujimori, many Peruvians had little sympathy for Berenson and believed she was guilty.

The now-defunct MRTA captured international attention in late 1996 when rebels took hundreds of hostages at the Japanese ambassador’s mansion in Lima and held 72 of them for four months. The hostage-takers demanded the release of Berenson and imprisoned MRTA chiefs. In April 1997, Fujimori ordered a spectacular commando raid in which a hostage, two commandos and all 14 guerrillas were killed.

Berenson was captured in November 1995 during a police crackdown that involved a shootout with MRTA leaders. She was convicted of treason--a finding that was criticized because she was a foreigner--and sentenced to life in prison by a military tribunal.

In the fearsome judicial apparatus Fujimori had set up to crush runaway terrorism in the early 1990s, judges hidden behind masks and one-way mirrors presided over secret courtrooms. They issued speedy and harsh verdicts, sometimes as soon as defense lawyers finished their arguments. Human rights groups here and abroad criticized the system, though they kept their distance from the Berenson case.

Berenson spent almost two years in a remote, top-security prison for terrorists high in the cold and inhospitable Andes mountains. In late 1998, authorities transferred her to a prison at a lower altitude because of worsening medical problems related to the grim conditions of her imprisonment. U.S. diplomats argued consistently that her trial had been unfair and called for a new one. However, the envoys did not comment on her guilt or innocence.

Last year, as Fujimori came under international pressure in the wake of his disputed reelection to a third term, an appeals court abruptly overturned Berenson’s conviction and granted her request for a new trial. It is likely that the decision was ordered from the top: Videotapes have revealed that Vladimiro Montesinos, Peru’s former spy chief, manipulated the justice system at will and discussed how to use the Berenson case to Peru’s advantage.

Reflecting the reformist bent of the transition government that took power after Fujimori’s ouster last November, the retrial was held in different circumstances than the first one. The proceedings were open and televised. When Berenson complained about having to testify from behind the bars of a holding area--a standard procedure in courts here and elsewhere in Latin America--she was allowed into the courtroom proper.

“It has been a quite long trial, no one expected this, and that relates to the fact that the judges wanted to give the defense all the guarantees,” said lawyer Carlos Rivera of the Legal Defense Institute, a human rights group. “One of the principal criticisms of the previous trial was that the rights of the defense were abridged and that the military court’s sentence was arbitrary and unjust.”

Nonetheless, the defense argued that the retrial was unfair and that the judges were biased holdovers from the corrupt Fujimori regime. Berenson’s attorney said he intends to appeal to Peru’s Supreme Court.

Another recourse for Berenson’s parents, who left their jobs to devote themselves to their daughter’s defense, would be a request for a presidential pardon. That would probably end up on the desk of President-elect Alejandro Toledo after he takes office July 28.

On Wednesday before the verdict, Berenson’s father made an emotional appeal to Peruvians.

“I believe in Lori, I believe in justice--please Peru, demonstrate equality for all,” said Mark Berenson. “I love my daughter. I believe she is innocent. She loves Peru. She loves justice.”

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Times staff writer Rotella reported from Buenos Aires and special correspondent Tarnawiecki from Lima.