World

Sex Abuse Allegation In Berenson Case

By CBSNews.com staff CBSNews.com staff

December 27, 2001 / 2:57 AM EST / CBS

A lawyer for U.S. citizen Lori Berenson, jailed in Peru for aiding a leftist rebel group, said on Wednesday his client was allegedly mistreated during a prison transfer last week, but her father said she was sexually abused.

Defense attorney Jose Luis Sandoval told RPP radio he filed an "abuse of authority and injuries" complaint against Justice Minister Fernando Olivera, the head of Peru's prison authority, and police officials after Berenson's sudden transfer from a Lima top-security women's jail to the northern city of Cajamarca.

Her father, Mark Berenson, said the complaint was rooted in physical and sexual abuse that occurred during the surprise move, which officials said was made for security reasons.

Mr. Berenson says "the complaint was for sexual molestation and the way she was moved."

In an interview with CBS News Radio, Lori's mother, Rhoda Berenson, says other prisoners told visitors to the jail what had happened.

Mrs. Berenson says her daughter was visited yesterday at the jail by both her attorney and a U.S. State Department official.

Judicial authorities have not yet commented on the allegations.

Mr. Berenson charges that security forces, armed with tear gas and billy clubs, fondled and threatened to rape his daughter and beat other prisoners during the move to her new prison. "There was no reason for this brutal attack," he said.

Olivera, top justice official for President Alejandro Toledo, said Berenson and fellow leftist prisoner Nancy Gilvonio had been moved because they refused to participate in rehabilitation programs and had flunked behavior exams.

In 1996, a military court sentenced Berenson to life in prison as a leader of the leftist Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement, known by its Spanish acronym as MRTA.

She spent several years in different prisons, including a freezing one some 12,700 feet above sea level, before being given a civilian retrial this year.

The civilian court gave Berenson a 20-year sentence for helping the MRTA plan an attack on Congress. The rebel group is best known for later taking hostages and occupying the Japanese ambassador's residence for 126 days in 1996-97.

Berenson, who is due to be released in 2015, says she is not guilty of any crimes. Her father said the transfer was designed to silence her. "This is unacceptable in a democracy and in any civilized country," he said.