Montesinos due in court today amid tight security
Jane Diaz-Limaco in Lima Tuesday February 18, 2003 The Guardian
The former spymaster Vladimiro Montesinos, who ran Peru from the shadows in tandem with its disgraced president Alberto Fujimori, goes on trial for corruption today.
At the height of his power in the late 90s he managed Peru from the secret service headquarters virtually at his whim, rigging elections, dictating the results of trials and buying off most of the television stations with bags of cash.
His crooked empire collapsed in late 2000, shortly after Mr Fujimori won a third term, when a video he had secretly made of himself bribing an opposition MP was stolen and shown on television.
Mr Fujimori fled to Tokyo in November 2000 and sent his resignation by fax.
He left behind hundreds of videos clandestinely filmed by Mr Montesinos which provide a fly-on-the-wall account of the intelligence chief's meetings with many of Peru's elite to conspire in corruption.
International investigations have found $207m (£130m) in overseas bank accounts linked to the corruption web.
There are 1,329 people under investigation for corruption. About a dozen generals, several ministers, and several newspaper and television station owners are in jail, as are two of Mr Montesinos' lovers.
Mr Montesinos fled by yacht to the Galapagos islands, and then Venezuela, with three bodyguards, a masseuse and a satellite telephone.
Death squads
He is charged with 57 offences, including ordering death squad killings, trafficking arms to the Colombian Farc guerrillas, drug trafficking, money laundering, and bribing congressional representatives, politicians, a talk-show hostess and judges.
Since he was flown back from Venezuela in handcuffs in June 2001 he has been imprisoned in the top security cells he personally designed for guerrilla leaders.
But the balding 57-year-old lawyer is almost a myth in Peru, because of his powers of persuasion and blackmail, and a reputation for miraculous comebacks. He was drummed out of the army in the 70s and narrowly avoided being tried for treason for selling military secrets to the United States.
He spent a year in prison on a lesser charge. But by the 90s was back and running the armed forces.
Most Peruvians believe he worked for the CIA, still holds sway over many politicians and judges, and has links to drugs mafias and killers who will stop at nothing to keep some of his secrets hidden.
Most also fear that he will be out of jail in under 10 years.
Judges have already thrown out two cases of drugs trafficking and killing, although these rulings have been taken to appeal.
His trial has been delayed by bureaucracy and concern for security.
The first hearing was due in October, but Mr Montesinos brought a legal challenge against the judges.
A dispute about where he should be tried caused a further delay.
The special state prosecution office want him tried in the top-security naval prison where he is being held, and a courtroom is being built there.
Until it is completed the hearings will be in the Lurigancho prison in Lima, where two courtrooms are being knocked into one and fitted with bullet-proof glass and security cameras.
Mr Montesinos will be flown there by helicopter and taken to his cell through a specially built tunnel .
Judge Magaly Bascones says that the six judges in charge of investigating the scandal are being hindered by inadequate funds and the complexity of the cases. The government has complained that the judiciary is dragging its feet.
In Mr Fujimori's case an extradition request has been held up for six months because the supreme court has yet to have his file translated.
Mr Montesinos, whose first job for Mr Fujimori was to get him off tax evasion charges when he was contesting the presidency, is denying all the charges which carry longer sentences, such as murder and drug trafficking but while cooperating on lesser charges, claiming that he was carrying out the president's orders.
A judge has already sentenced him to nine years, without a hearing, for usurping the job of the head of the secret service.
The first cases to be heard this week are relatively minor offences: arranging a pardon for his lover's brother, who was jailed for drug trafficking, and diverting $25,000 of government money to a mayoral candidate.
They carry sentences of five and eight years respectively.
But it is still not certain that the hearings will go ahead.
Mr Montesinos has lodged a last-minute appeal arguing that because prison sentences run concurrently in Peru he should not be tried on any charge that carries a term of less than nine years.
He has also claimed to be psychologically unfit and suicidal, saying that he suffers insomnia and nightmares, and sees spiders.
Year of turbulence
April-May 2000
Presidential challenger Alejandro Toledo pulls out of an election run-off against Alberto Fujimori, alleging that a fraud is being prepared. During the campaign opposition candidates barred from television stations controlled by spy chief Vladimiro Montesinos. The run-off goes ahead, but international observers refuse to monitor the one-candidate 'contest'
July
Fujimori sworn in amid violent protests. Infiltrators planted by the secret service set fire to a bank building, killing six guards trapped inside
September
Opposition party presents a video showing Montesinos giving an opposition congressman $15,000 in cash to switch to Fujimori's party. Fujimori says he is disbanding the secret service and promises new elections
October
Montesinos flees Peru
November
Fujimori says he is attending a trade summit in Brunei but diverts to Japan, from where he faxes his resignation