Spy Chief Search Becomes Soap Opera
C H A C L A C A Y O, Peru, Oct. 27 -- Call it Peru’s version of The Fugitive.
Machine-gun toting agents and sniffer dogs led by the nation’s president raced through streets of a resort town in search of the country’s shadowy top fugitive — all broadcast on televisionto astounded Peruvians.
But the prey — ex-intelligence chief Vladimiro Montesinos —proved too elusive, possibly shielded by his military allies. Aclearly upset President Alberto Fujimori did not speak to reportersThursday after the search flopped.
Peruvians, however, remain transfixed by the search for thespymaster, with one Lima tabloid even putting his picture on itsfront page above the caption “wanted dead or alive.”
Bribery Scandal, Political Chaos
Montesinos, once the president’s top adviser, returned to PeruMonday after a monthlong exile in Panama, plunging the country intopolitical chaos and forcing Fujimori to act to calm a furiousopposition and critical international community.
Montesinos had fled Peru in September after a videotape showinghim apparently bribing an opposition congressman set off angryprotests and led Fujimori to call early elections in which he willnot run.
But now the game is on to see whether Montesinos can be shieldedfrom popular outrage by the web of spies, informers and allies inthe military and judicial system he built up during his years atthe head of Peru’s feared intelligence service.
Peruvian prosecutors announced Thursday they will investigateseven criminal complaints charging Montesinos with assorted humanrights violations.
Meanwhile, congressman Alberto Kouri — the lawmaker seen taking$15,000 from Montesinos on video — reportedly fled to Dallas on acommercial flight late Thursday, hours after Congress voted tocharge him with corruption, illicit enrichment and malfeasance.
A Nationwide Soap Opera
Fujimori searched Chaclacayo because Montesinos was thought tohave a home in the affluent community of weekend homes, swimmingpools and mountains, 22 miles east of Peru’s capital, Lima.
