Spokesman: Former president unlikely to take the stand

LIMA, Peru (AP) -- A Peruvian court has approved a request to have ex-President Alberto Fujimori testify by a satellite link in the bribery trial of his former spy chief, officials said Tuesday.

Vladimiro Montesinos' lawyer asked the court Monday to allow the satellite testimony. Monday was the opening day of Montesinos' sixth public trial. The former spy chief is accused of paying the former owners of a television station millions of dollars to broadcast favorable news about Fujimori.

Montesinos, 58, also faces dozens of charges including corruption, arranging weapons sales to Colombian rebels, drug trafficking and authorizing death squad killings while serving as Fujimori's security adviser in the 1990s.

Peru's top anti-corruption investigator, Luis Vargas Valdivia, welcomed the possibility of testimony by Fujimori, who fled to Japan amid a bribery scandal involving Montesinos that brought down his decade-long government in November 2000.

Fujimori's spokesman in Lima, Carlos Raffo, said it was unlikely that the former president would agree to testify before "a biased, politically manipulated justice system."

Montesinos has so far been convicted of only four relatively minor corruption counts and sentenced to a total of nine years in prison.

Although Montesinos has been imprisoned since his arrest in June 2001, Fujimori is protected from extradition to Peru by Japanese citizenship. Fujimori faces more than a dozen charges ranging from corruption to authorizing death squad murders, but has not been charged for bribing the television owners.

"Since he has not been accused of the same charge, he can make declarations as a witness," Vargas Valdivia said.

Fujimori denies any wrongdoing and has launched a presidential campaign ahead of Peruvian elections in 2006, despite being legally prohibited from holding public office for 10 years.

Copyright 2004 The Associated Press.