Deported Fugitive Spymaster Lands in Peru
LIMA, Peru, June 25 -- Vladimiro Lenin Montesinos, a dreadedspymaster who once worked closely with the CIA and built an empireof corruption, was flown back to Peru today after being caughtin Venezuela with the help of the FBI.
A Peruvian National Police airplane and another aircraft thatleft Caracas today and touched down at 6:10 a.m. local time inIquitos, a frontier jungle city, 620 miles northeast of thecapital, Lima, said an airport official in the tower, who refusedto identify himself by name.
Peru's interior minister, Antonio Ketin Vidal, praised the workof several intelligence agencies, including the FBI, forMontesinos' capture.
Venezuelan officials said nothing about the deportation processfollowing Montesinos' arrest late Saturday, ending an eight-monthinternational manhunt for South America's most-wanted man.
But Ketin Vidal told Peruvian TV from Caracas that he wasbringing Montesinos home.
The plane was quickly surrounded by some 50 police as it pulledoff the runway and into a hanger. It was expected to refuel andlater take off for the capital, Lima.
Allegations of CIA Links
Montesinos' apprehension came after dozens of arrests in Peru oftop military commanders, politicians and media executives believedto have illicit ties to the former spymaster.
In the late 1970s, Montesinos, then an army captain, was accusedof selling classified information about Peru's Russian-suppliedarmaments to U.S. intelligence officials. He was court-martialed,dishonorably discharged and spent a year in a military prison.
U.S. diplomatic officials have balked at the suggestion fromPeruvian lawmakers that Montesinos was a CIA operative during hisyears as Fujimori's security adviser.
However, they said thatMontesinos, as de facto head of Peru's intelligence service, wasthe liaison for U.S.-Peru counter-narcotics efforts.
Scandal After Scandal
The FBI, which helped track Montesinos down, in Februaryarrested Peruvian police Col. Manuel Aybar Marca, accused ofhelping engineer Montesinos' escape from Peru last October as thegovernment of then-President Alberto Fujimori crumbled amidscandal.
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