By Margaret Janelle Hutchinson
Impunity Watch Reporter, South America

 LIMA, Peru – President Ollanta Humala has announced that the State Prosecutor will appeal a 3-2 ruling handed down by the Supreme Court last Friday which reduced prison sentences for the country’s former spy chief, Vladimiro Montesinos, and members of a paramilitary death squad known as the Grupo Colina.

The Colina group, wearing masks, machine-gunned 15 people, including an 8-year-old boy, in the courtyard of a tenement building in Lima’s Barrios Altos district in 1991 and kidnapped, tortured and murdered nine students and one professor at La Cantuta University in 1992.

Other crimes of which they were accused included the murder in May 1992 of 10 small farmers in the Santa Valley, north of Lima, allegedly at the personal request of General Hermoza, and the assassination in December 1992 of Pedro Huillca, the influential leader of the national workers’ union, CGTP, who had called for a national strike against then President Fujimori’s privatization efforts.  The death and dismemberment of intelligence agent Mariella Barreto also was attributed to members of the squad.

In 2004, investigative journalist Ricard Uceda published Muerte en el Pentagonito, a well-documented report on the human rights violations by the military intelligence service in their fight against terrorism between 1982 and 1993, with key details of the death squads kidnappings, torture and incineration of victims in the basement of the military headquarters in the San Borja district of Lima.

Released in 2011, a meticulously detailed documentary, La Cantuta en la Boca del Diablo, traces the work of investigative journalist Edmundo Cruz into the death of the university students and professor, who were pulled out of their dorm rooms at the Chosica campus before dawn and never seen again.  Some of their scattered remains were found near the water treatment plant in east Lima and more remains were found between the hillsides on the road to Cieneguilla.  In some cases, confirmation of their whereabouts was only made by matching keys to their dorm lockers, found buried among the pieces of lime-bleached bones in the desert.

The Supreme Court’s argument to annul the qualification of crime against humanity was that the squad was acting as part of a chain of command within the army and that they were fighting terrorists.

At the time, Peru was locked in a bloody conflict with the Shining Path, a Maoist-inspired insurgency that sought to topple the government system.

The president of the Supreme Court, Javier Villa Stein, said that while the killings were human rights crimes, they are not necessarily crimes against humanity.

Peruvians have reacted with widespread anger and are voicing their opposition in the streets of Lima. In a video victims’ family members spoke out against impunity. One woman interviewed said: “[The judge] says that it is not crime against humanity. But what about my son? He was eight years old and they shot him with seven bullets in his body and one in his face.”

The President’s wife, Nadine Heredia tweeted: “Crimes of the Colina group and their leaders should not be forgotten. This ruling stains the honor of our country!”

“To kill a child is a terrible crime but that doesn’t convert it into a crime against humanity,” Stein said.

Human rights attorney Gloria Cano, who represents 14 victims of the Colina group, said the ruling contradicts a 2001 decision by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights that deemed the killings crimes against humanity.

“In our country, the military are in prison while the terrorists are already out,” Stein said.

Writing for the court, Judge Javier Villa Stein said the men could not be made to serve sentences for crimes against humanity because the prosecutor in the case had not specifically sought to convict them on that charge. The prosecutor refutes that, however, as do court documents filed in 2005.

In 2009, ex-President Alberto Fujimori, who took office in 1990, was found guilty on charges for sanctioning the death squad.

The Supreme Court’s decision trimmed the prison sentences of 15 former military men as well as Mr Montesinos, who as national security adviser to Mr. Fujimori helped him maintain power through violence, bribery and intimidation.

The court also overturned the aggravated murder conviction and 15-year sentence of Montesino’s army intelligence chief, Alberto Pinto, for providing financial and logistical support to the Colina group.

Pinto was released from prison on Tuesday.

Defendants convicted of crimes against humanity in Peru are not eligible for parole. Those convicted of murder are eligible after serving two-thirds of their sentence.

Mr. Montesinos himself will not be eligible for parole any time soon. He has been convicted of a series of other crimes including running guns to Colombian rebels.

Peruvian courts have found that the Colina group committed 53 murders of supposed left-wing rebel sympathizers and other civilians from 1991 to 1996 with the knowledge and aid of high-ranking officials who gave the group state funds, medical insurance, cars, weapons and training.

For further information, please see:

Al Jazeera – Peru: Outrage over death squad decision – 26 July 2012

Fox News Latino – Peruvians Outraged Over Possible Release of Death Squad – 25 July 2012

Morning Star – Court Ruling Court Free Peruvian Death Squad Members – 25 July 2012

Peruvian Times – Humala Says State Attorney to Appeal Supreme Court Ruling that Lightens Sentence of Death Squad and Montesinos – 24 July 2012