Vladimiro Montesinos, a former adviser to President Alberto Fujimori, pleaded guilty to a massacre

During the early hours of January 29, 1992, in Pativilca, a town in Barranca province, more than 170 kilometers north of Lima, several groups of hooded men broke into the homes of 18-year-olds John Calderón Ríos, Toribio Ortiz Aponte . , 25, Feliandro Castillo Manrique, 38, Pedro Aguero Rivera (35), Ernesto Arias Velasquez (17) and César Rodríguez Esquivel. They abducted them, tortured them, shot them to death and dumped their bodies in sugarcane fields. In the surrounding environment he left a terrible impression: “smells death.”

A Chinese businessman, who coveted land in Caraqueño and San José Annexes, accused the people occupying these areas of being part of the Shining Path terrorist group, and asked for the “help” of the then head of the Armed Joint Command. Bal, Nicolas Hermoza Rios. That help included kicking them, burning them with a blowtorch, and then killing them by shooting them in the head. According to the judicial file, the terrible operation was under the direction of Santiago Martín Rivas, who was in charge of the Colina paramilitary group and depended on the orders of Vladimiro Montesinos, presidential advisor to Alberto Fujimori.

This Monday, 22 years later, in a virtual session, during the oral hearing of the Pattivilca case, Montesinos took advantage of the legal figure of an early conclusion and, with it, accepted his responsibility for the crimes of which he was accused. Charged: Enforced disappearance and murder. He said briefly, “Yes, I accept, Madam Speaker.” While this was happening, Fujimori, wearing a light blue shirt, was checking his cell phone. The former President, who was prosecuted in the same case, informed the court that he would not accept the preliminary findings and, therefore, the trial against him would continue.

The patriarch of the Fujimori clan was released from prison in early December due to a ruling by the Constitutional Court that violates a ruling by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights. Although he has given no interviews and maintains a low profile, his followers from the Fuerza Popular party, led by his daughter Keiko, have insisted that his release is “an act of humanity and justice.” In that sense, the fact that his right-hand man, Montesinos, has confessed to his guilt in a massacre does not leave him in a good position in his attempt to rehabilitate his image and hide his legacy. Political scientist José Alejandro Godoy summarizes, “Essentially, the ‘adviser’ is legally and historically destroying the president.”

It was a member of the Colina group who, by his testimony, convicted Nicolás Hermoza Ríos, Vladimiro Montesinos and Alberto Fujimori. This is the sophomore coach, Jorge Ortiz Mantas. “In the military, nothing is done without higher orders,” he said at a hearing in 2008. Gloria Cano, a lawyer with the Association for Human Rights (Aprodeh), which has been defending victims of pativilka for decades. Other. Responsibility for the massacres, which has fallen on the Peruvian government since the 1990s, links Montesinos’s confession to Fujimori’s crimes. “If you are accepting the terms of the charge, you are accepting participation in the development of the strategy. “This means that he directed it together with Fujimori, that the Colina Detachment was created, all the conditions of the accusation,” he told the Infobae portal.

To analysts, Montesinos’s confession is not necessarily an act of repentance, but rather a strategy to avoid adding more years to prison. His defense has requested that, taking advantage of the speedy conclusion, his sentence be reduced, that is, it be paid in addition to the 22 and a half years he has already spent in prison. The prosecutor’s request is for 25 years in prison. The sentence will be pronounced today Wednesday morning.

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