Peru Won’t Annul American’s Prison Sentence

Peru will not free a U.S. woman serving a 20-year sentence for terrorism even if the region’s top human rights court orders it, the nation’s foreign minister said in remarks broadcast Saturday.

The Inter-American Court of Human Rights, based in Costa Rica, is scheduled to discuss Lori Berenson’s case Wednesday or Thursday, although it is not certain whether it will rule then.

The 35-year-old New Yorker was convicted of collaborating with leftist rebels, and her attorneys have exhausted all legal avenues in Peru.

Berenson argues that her civilian retrial and sentencing in 2001, ordered after then-President Alberto Fujimori had overturned her 1996 treason conviction by a summary military court, was unfair.

She says she is innocent.

Asked what would follow if the rights court says she should be freed, Foreign Minister Manuel Rodriguez told the Canal N cable channel: “I hope the Inter-American Court of Human Rights doesn’t make that mistake.

“If this error were to happen, the Peruvian state, with judicial reason, would adopt the position of not freeing anyone accused of terrorism,” he said.

The former MIT student was arrested in 1995 and initially was sentenced to life in prison as a leader of the Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement.

She is not scheduled for release until just after her 46th birthday.