Judges in Peru defy trial custom

 BY LUCIEN CHAUVIN
 Special to The Herald

 LIMA, Peru -- Lori Berenson, the New York woman accused of conspiring with leftist guerrillas to seize Peru's Congress in 1995, won a small victory in her trial Thursday, persuading judges to let her testify in the open courtroom rather than from a barred cell.

 Defendants in Peruvian trials customarily must testify from the cells, but Berenson argued that the bars violated the principle of presumed innocence.

 Judge Marcos Ibazeta reminded her that the trial was being conducted under Peruvian, not American, rules. "We cannot discriminate because it would violate the
 principle of equality in our country,'' he said.

 Nonetheless, the judges brought Berenson out from behind the bars for her testimony.

 Defendants in Peru and other nations whose legal systems are based on France's Napoleonic code don't enjoy the same presumption of innocence as defendants in the United States and countries whose laws are derived from English precedents.

 Berenson testified for the first time Thursday after declining the court's offer of a lighter sentence in return for confessing to charges of "terrorist collaboration,'' which
 carries a potential prison term of 20 years.

 "I am innocent of the charges against me,'' she told the judges.

 Berenson is accused of renting a Lima safe house for the Túpac Amaru Revolutionary Movement (MRTA) and of undergoing guerrilla training there as the group plotted to take Peru's entire Congress hostage.

 After she was arrested in November 1995 while riding on a bus, a secret military court convicted Berenson of treason the following year, but the government of former President Alberto Fujimori ordered a new civilian trial, on lesser charges.

 Most of Prosecutor Carlos Navas Rondón's line of questioning Thursday was aimed at Berenson's involvement with communist revolutionaries in Nicaragua and El
 Salvador before she came to Peru in 1994.

 Berenson has always said that she was working in Peru as a journalist and didn't know her roommates were members of a terrorist organization.

 Navas also questioned her about testimony from MRTA members implicating her in the group's activities. He asked Berenson to explain why convicted rebel Lucinda Rojas Landa, who was wounded during a shootout with security forces at the safe house, had told anti-terrorism police that Berenson served food, participated in meetings and socialized with the rebels.

 "Lucinda Rojas Landa was badly wounded with five gunshots and it was in that condition that she was pressured by the anti-terrorism police,'' Berenson replied. "They said she said a series of things that I don't believe she said, or at least that had anything to do with the truth.''

 The prosecutor also asked how her handwritten notes got onto MRTA documents and propaganda publication found in the safe house. Replied Berenson: "I never saw documents linked to the MRTA.'' She and her attorney, José Luis Sandoval, complained that they had never been shown any of the documents.

 Berenson's parents, retired college professors Mark and Rhoda Berenson, were upbeat at the trial, pleased that their daughter was moved out from the cell and said she "looked confident and spoke well.''

 "Lori always speaks the truth, so I'm sure that's what she did today,'' said Rhoda Berenson.

 Peruvians gathered at a Lima café to watch the trial on television were less impressed.

 "I think she is guilty. She keeps defending these people who caused so much damage to our country. I feel bad for the parents, but not for her,'' said Judith Contreras, a college student watching the trial, who noted that Berenson refused to criticize MRTA leaders and spoke warmly of some of them.

 Berenson's case will be heard every Tuesday and Thursday in a trial that could last well into May. In addition to prosecuting and defense lawyers, the three-judge panel will also question Berenson and nine witnesses slated to testify.

                                    © 2001