LIMA, Peru (Reuters) -- Peru's jailed former spymaster, Vladimiro
                 Montesinos, has ended a nine-day hunger strike, but a defense lawyer
                 preparing a courtroom showdown with accusers and a roll call of
                 witnesses was taken off the case on Monday.

                 Justice Minister Diego Garcia Sayan told CPN radio on Monday that one of
                 Montesinos' state-appointed lawyers, Patricia Hurtado, had been taken off the
                 case "since (Montesinos) now has his own professional advice."

                 Hurtado told Reuters: "I have not been told anything" about her removal. There
                 has been no official announcement that Montesinos has hired his own attorney,
                 but Garcia Sayan referred to Estela Valdivia, who has said she is working on
                 Montesinos' behalf.

                 Montesinos went from being the power behind Alberto Fujimori -- now
                 disgraced and self-exiled after a decade as Peru's president -- to being Latin
                 America's most wanted man.

                 He was captured two weeks ago in Venezuela after eight months on the run
                 from 52 charges, ranging from corruption t o operating death squads.

                 But he has played a cat-and-mouse game since then, refusing to eat and at times
                 snubbing his interrogating judges as the nation hopes to hear him spill his
                 secrets.

                 "Yes, he's off his hunger strike. He's now taking some solids, a plain diet after
                 several days on just water," Hurtado told Reuters hours before being taken off
                 the case, adding he was now cooperating with judges questioning him in his
                 bleak jail and the defense was working out his strategy.

                 Gloria Aguero, another lawyer assigned by the state amid an avalanche of
                 probes, said the nine-day fast ended on Saturday.

                 Montesinos, 56, arrived home -- for a trial widely expected to land him in prison
                 for life -- 33 pounds (15 kg) lighter after dashing to the Caribbean by yacht in
                 October and then slipping from safe house to safe house in Venezuela.

                 Prison officials have said he has been taking sugared water and perhaps even
                 sneaking candy and crackers from a personal supply he took with him to the jail
                 in Lima's grim naval base, where Peru's most dangerous felons are held.

                 Peru's prize captive faces months of interrogation behind closed doors before
                 what is expected to be a sensational public trial. He is charged with engineering
                 what investigators call a corruption "mafia," buying favors in Peru's courts,
                 Congress, media and military, hounding opponents, and rigging elections.

                 "We are preparing a defense strategy, with witnesses, confrontations, judicial
                 inspections," Hurtado said earlier.

                 She added: "The judge will have to decide the timing of the confrontation,
                 putting my client face to face with the person making the accusation and seeing
                 the points of controversy."

                 Montesinos is himself a lawyer who reportedly defended drug dealers after
                 being expelled from the army and serving a brief stint in prison for selling
                 secrets to the CIA.

                 His downfall came in September, when one of his hundreds of secretly taped
                 videos was aired on television, shocking Peruvians with the sight of a top
                 official handing a legislator a bribe. More than 2,000 "Vladivideos" were seized,
                 and since his capture, Montesinos has said he has 30,000 more.

                 The scandal plunged Peru into chaos, sparked fears of a coup by Montesinos
                 loyalists in the military and finally toppled Fujimori in November. The former
                 president, fired by Congress as "morally unfit," remains in Japan, protected by
                 dual citizenship from moves to try him.

                    Copyright 2001 Reuters.