TORTURE VICTIMS IN CHILE SUE FUJIMORI (torture charge can follow the torturer outside his country)

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Valparaiso Times

TORTURE VICTIMS IN CHILE SUE FUJIMORI
Written by Benjamin Witte
Tuesday, 31 July 2007

Two Chilean lawyers last week filed a criminal suit against ex-Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori, demanding that the former head-of-state be held accountable for the torture of two Peruvians currently living in Chile as refugees.
The lawyers, Hugo Gutiérrez and Hiram Villagra, presented the suit on behalf of María Elena Loayza and César Mamani Valverde.

In early 1993, according to the lawsuit, Loayza was apprehended, raped and tortured by Peruvian government counter-terrorism agents, who accused her of membership in the Shining Path guerrilla organization. A university professor at the time, Loayza denies any such association.

A year earlier, in May 1992 – just weeks after Fujimori’s April 15 “self-coup” – Mamani Valverde was also arrested. Peruvian authorities held him in the infamous Castro Castro prison, where he claims he was repeatedly tortured. Valverde lost an eye as a result of the brutal treatment. That same month, government forces massacred some 42 inmates in the prison, located in the town of San Juan de Lurigancho.

“In the wake of the self-coup, they were victimized by security forces of the Fujimori dictatorship,” Gutiérrez told the Santiago Times. “They’re refugees in Chile, and they understand that their human rights were violated, that they were subjected to torture. Since (torture) is a crime that can be prosecuted wherever the torturer is, they’ve asked that the Chilean state pursue this as a criminal case.”




Read more: http://www.valparaisotimes.cl/content/view/136/1/

[Judi Lynn]

1. Kick!

:kick: :kick: :kick: