American Convicted in Peru

ByABC News
June 20, 2001, 5:48 AM

L I M A, Peru, June 20 -- American Lori Berenson was convicted today of collaborating with a leftist guerrilla organization that had plotted a thwarted assault on Peru's Congress, but cleared of charges she was an active rebel militant in the group.

The civilian court found the 31-year-old New York native guilty of "terrorist collaboration" with the Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement, or MRTA.

Berenson, who stood calmly while the verdict was read, was found guilty of aiding the group by renting a house that served as their hideout and posing as a journalist to enter Congress to gather intelligence with a top rebel commander's wife.

Presiding Magistrate Marcos Ibazeta instructed Berenson to stand while a court clerk read out a chronology of the case against her before a sentence would be handed out.

The verdict came five hours after Berenson, a former Massachusetts Institute of Technology student, said in her closing statement: "I am not a terrorist."

"I am innocent of the prosecutor's charges of being a member of and a collaborator with the MRTA," she said. "I am not a terrorist. I condemn terrorism, and I say that in every case."

The prosecution has asked for a 20-year sentence.

There is little sympathy for Berenson in Peru, which still remembers the bloody war against leftist rebels that wound down in the early 1990s.

Justice Minister Diego Garcia Sayan said earlier that the government would respect the verdict and that Berenson would serve out any sentence in Peru dimming hopes that she could receive a presidential pardon.

Five Lost Years

A spokesman for President-elect Alejandro Toledo, who takesoffice July 28, said he had no immediate comment on whether hemight consider a pardon. But the spokesman said Toledo mightdiscuss the matter on a trip to the United States next week to seekeconomic aid.

Berenson has served more than five years in Andean jails afterthe military convicted her for allegedly plotting a thwarted raidon Congress by MRTA.