U.S. Woman’s Peru Jail Term Reportedly Upheld

The Inter-American Court of Human Rights has upheld the 20-year sentence of Lori Berenson, a New York native convicted in Peru for terrorist collaboration with Marxist guerrillas, President Alejandro Toledo said Thursday.

Berenson’s legal team, led by former U.S. Atty. Gen. Ramsey Clark, had argued that her trial in Peru failed to meet international standards for fairness and that she faced hostile judges who relied on coerced testimony and tainted evidence.

The court will not officially notify the two sides of its decision until today, court spokesman Arturo Monge said in Costa Rica.

“The court cannot control what people outside the court say,” he said of Toledo’s comments.

Berenson, in a telephone interview from prison, confirmed that the ruling went against her.

“Yeah, it’s true, but I’m not allowed to talk to the press,” Berenson said when reached at Huacariz penitentiary in Cajamarca, 350 miles north of Lima, the capital. “I cannot give you any statements. I’m sorry.”

Berenson, 35, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology dropout, has spent nine years in Peruvian prisons. Berenson denies wrongdoing and says she is a political prisoner whose concern for social justice was distorted by officials to look like a terrorist agenda.

She appealed to the Inter-American court after military and civilian trials in Peru ended in convictions. Berenson was arrested in 1995 on charges of being a leader of the Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement and plotting a thwarted attack on Peru’s Congress.