New Trial Starting for American Accused of Terrorist Links

By Anthony Faiola and Lucien Chauvin
Washington Post Foreign Service

BUENOS AIRES, March 19 -- Lori Berenson, the American who five years ago was convicted by Peru's hooded military judges of helping the Tupac Amaru rebel
movement prepare a terrorist attack, gets a new opportunity to win her freedom beginning Tuesday, this time in a civilian court.

The proceedings in Lima, the Peruvian capital, promise to be a politically charged legal marathon. With the first conviction overturned, Berenson's lawyers will seek
to show that one of Peru's most famous prisoners also is not guilty of new, lesser charges of collaborating with terrorists.

Berenson's life sentence on conviction of acting as a front in arms deals and helping plot a takeover of Congress by Peru's second-largest insurgency group was
thrown out last August. Suddenly, the 31-year-old former Massachusetts Institute of Technology student, who has spent five years in harsh Peruvian jails and has
proclaimed her innocence, was given a glimmer of hope for release.

Now, her hopes rest at least in part on new testimony that led Peru's highest military court to annul her earlier conviction. That testimony came last year from three
former hostages who spent months as captives of the Tupac Amaru during its dramatic takeover four years ago of the Japanese ambassador's residence in Lima.

The three told the court that during their captivity they overheard an important remark about Berenson by one of the rebel leaders. Recounting his testimony, retired
Adm. Luis Giampietri, one of the three former hostages, said in an interview that a rebel nicknamed "the Arab" -- later killed in the raid that rescued the hostages --
once told a group of captives that Berenson was wrongly convicted.

"He told us no, that she was not a leader or involved in any important way," Giampietri said. "Basically, that is what he told us."

But in a country where people question virtually everything that happened during the months before disgraced President Alberto Fujimori fled to Japan in November,
Giampietri's testimony and that of the other hostages is considered suspect by many Peruvians. Some political analysts say they believe Fujimori and his intelligence
chief, Vladimiro Montesinos, planned to free Berenson to improve their troubled relations with the United States and that the testimony was concocted to further their
plan.

These doubts have been fueled by one of the hundreds of secret videotapes made public in recent months during an investigation into Fujimori and his former
intelligence chief. In one, Montesinos is seen talking about the Berenson case with then-Foreign Minister Eduardo Ferrero in early 1998. In the video, Montesinos
tells Ferrero that Peru needs to be "realistic and practical" about Berenson, insisting that she should be granted a new trial, perhaps followed by a pardon or prisoner
exchange with the United States.

That idea does not sit well with many Peruvians, who remember Berenson's televised statement just before her February 1996 conviction in which she seemed to
defend the Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement. In an interview last November, Berenson, while maintaining her innocence, still refused to repudiate the rebels,
who have become her chief companions in prison.

State prosecutors will try in the coming weeks to prove that Berenson had a long history of associating with leftist groups in Latin America and that the Tupac Amaru
had become her latest cause. If convicted on the lesser charges of collaborating with terrorists, Berenson would face a maximum sentence of 20 years.

Berenson's case has become a lightning rod for international legal rights advocates, who say her case underscores the failings of developing world justice, and for
right-wing politicians in Peru, who say Berenson should not be afforded special treatment because she is a U.S. citizen.

Berenson is one of thousands arrested in Peru on charges of supporting or being part of two powerful left-wing guerrilla movements in the 1990s, the Tupac Amaru
and the Shining Path. Those arrested faced almost certain conviction in perfunctory military trials during which the judges wore hoods to protect their identities.
Berenson, who lived in a house that had become a major hub for the Tupac Amaru, was charged with posing as a foreign journalist to act as a front for the group.

Her parents, Mark and Rhoda Berenson, view the new trial with deep reservations, insisting that their daughter has been used by Fujimori all along as a political
pawn and maintaining that she is an innocent young activist who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Even with Fujimori gone and a caretaker
government of his former opposition in power, they said they see no way for their daughter to receive a fair trial. They are calling for the remaining charges to be
dropped and their daughter to be released.

"Holding this trial before the justice system is reformed is a continuation of Fujimori and Montesinos's wrongs," Mark Berenson told reporters in Lima last week.
Chauvin reported from Lima.

                                               © 2001