Fujimori Dictatorship Advisor Montesinos Sentenced To 17 years

On Thursday, the Peruvian justice condemned Vladimiro Montesinos to 17 years in prison for having ordered the kidnapping of El Pais journalist Gustavo Gorriti on April 5, 1992. At that time, he was intelligence adviser to the Alberto Fujimori dictatorship (1990-2000).

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The court, however, ruled that the punishment has been served given that Montesinos was imposed a 25-year sentence for human rights violations in 2001, and the Peruvian justice system does not add the sentences but imposes the one that has the most years in prison over the rest.

Following Montesino's orders, the military kidnapped Gorriti from his home and hid him at Army headquarters. Pressure from Spanish diplomacy and the media, however, managed to get the journalist released a few days later.

The Peruvian justice also sentenced former Gen. Jose Valdivia to 12-year-prison and former Generals Julio Salazar and Alfredo Arnaiz to a 10-year sentence for being primary accomplices to the crime.

Between 1991 and 1997, Montesinos ordered the murder of 15 people in Barrios Altos and nine students and one professor at La Cantuta University. He was also behind the torture of intelligent agents Mariela Barreto and Leonor La Rosa.

Besides laundering money, the Fujimori henchman spied and extorted military chiefs, politicians, judges, prosecutors, officials, entrepreneurs, and journalists.

After the dictatorship was overthrown in Nov. 2000, Montesinos fled Peru and hid in Venezuela. Nevertheless, he was extradited from this country in 2021 thanks to the agreements reached with then-President Hugo Chavez.