NEW YORK (AP) -- Peruvian President-elect Alejandro Toledo
                 said Monday he would not intervene in the case of an American
                 convicted last week of collaborating with terrorists.

                 Lori Berenson, 31, was convicted Wednesday for allegedly helping the
                 Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement plot a thwarted takeover of
                 Peru's Congress in 1995. She was acquitted of being a member of the
                 rebel group.

                 Berenson's parents have pleaded for Toledo to consider a pardon for her.

                 "This was open. I'm not a judge, nor am I a lawyer, and I am respectful of
                 the independence of the institutions," Toledo told reporters in New York. "I am
                 not in a position to interfere or to make a judgment about a given case."

                 "I have fought not to have a sort of kidnapped judicial system and whatever
                 decision the court assumes, we will respect," he said, adding that he is "a
                 defender of due process."

                 Berenson was sentenced to 20 years in prison, but is scheduled to be released in
                 2015 because she has already served more than five years after being convicted
                 earlier by a hooded military tribunal.

                 Toledo said he had met with Berenson's parents, but did not say when or where
                 the meeting took place.

                 Berenson's parents, meanwhile, held a news conference to denounce the second
                 Peruvian trial and proclaim their daughter's innocence. They said they hoped
                 that either Toledo or current President Valentin Paniagua would pardon
                 Berenson. They have also appealed her case to the Peruvian Supreme Court.

                 "This trial was open but it was not fair," said Mark Berenson, who attended the
                 three-month trial with his wife, Rhoda. "The judges acted as prosecutor, judge
                 and jury."

                 New York Rep. Carolyn Maloney said she was circulating a letter in the U.S.
                 Congress calling on Paniagua to pardon Berenson, "so that when Dr. Alejandro
                 Toledo takes office on July 28, his newly elected government can begin its
                 work free of the taint of Lori Berenson's conviction."

                 Berenson's parents said that despite her conviction, their daughter is at peace
                 because she never betrayed her principles.

                 "She cannot confess to something she did not do, and she cannot repent for
                 something she did not do, and that is what the judges kept goading her to do,"
                 Rhoda Berenson said.

                  Copyright 2001 The Associated Press.