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----- Original Message -----
From: Jim Jaszewski
Sent: Sunday, February 11, 2001 4:15 AM
Subject: Perú rocked by drug scandal in wake of Fujimori
flight Peruvian Drug Trafficker Tells Tale By RICK VECCHIO .c The Associated Press LIMA, Peru (AP) - Demetrio Chavez says torturers used drugs, electric shocks and even drilled a hole in his head to make him forget about his drug-trafficking partnership with Peru's chief of security. His story, told to congressional investigators and TV cameras, is the latest to fascinate Peruvians as they unravel the lurid goings-on during the decade-long rule of former President Alberto Fujimori, which ended in November. Chavez's story keeps the spotlight where it has been for months - on Vladimiro Montesinos, Fujimori's feared spymaster, who is believed to have fled Peru in a boat in October as the regime collapsed. Montesinos is accused of running a corruption and drug-running network that infected the armed forces from generals down. Peru is one of the world's major producers of the coca leaf used to make cocaine. The most hair-raising details given by Chavez - a convicted drug kingpin - to the congressional committee investigating Montesinos' alleged wrongdoing involve a brutal 1994 interrogation. ``They grabbed me by the neck and I felt an electric charge until I passed out. I woke up in a dark cell. My head hurt,'' he said. ``A few days later I washed it and I felt a lethal pain in the center of my head. I touched it. Material was leaking out and it smelled awful. ``Now I have a hole in my head,'' he told Congress. He did not explain what the hole was used for. Chavez, 47, who is better known by the alias ``Vaticano,'' told more in a series of prime-time TV interviews from his prison cell last week. He said he paid Montesinos $50,000 a month for allowing smugglers to use an airstrip in Peru's jungle-shrouded Huallaga Valley to ship semi-refined cocaine to Colombia. He said Montesinos bragged that he had worked with slain Colombian cocaine lord Pablo Escobar - bolstering a similar allegation by Escobar's jailed brother, Roberto. Montesinos doubled the fee for the landing strip, but Chavez said he refused to pay and fled to Colombia, believing Montesinos wanted him killed. He was captured and extradited back to Peru. Special state attorney Jose Ugaz said Chavez's testimony is crucial for the most important of several criminal investigations into alleged narcotics trafficking and money laundering by Montesinos and his underlings. Ugaz - who says that Chavez's testimony is credible - asserted that many military officers are implicated, including retired army Gen. Nicolas Hermoza, Peru's former armed forces commander. Hermoza denies the allegations. Fujimori's iron-fisted rule ended in November amid mounting corruption scandals surrounding Montesinos, once his most trusted security adviser. Fujimori has fled to Japan, his ancestral homeland. When Montesinos disappeared, he left behind a collection of secretly taped videos documenting his manipulation of legislators, judges, election officials and business leaders with favors, political appointments and cash. The videotaped revelations have rocked Peru's political establishment ahead of April 8 elections to elect Fujimori's successor. In 1994, four years into Fujimori's presidency, a military court sentenced Chavez to life imprisonment for treason, later reduced to 30 years. He was transferred this week to a non-military prison after testifying to the congressional committee, and he hopes to win retrial in a civilian court. ``It is urgent that his case be reopened,'' said Anel Townsend, a congresswoman on the committee. ``He has been trying to make his declaration since 1994, but there was never an investigation,'' she said. For years, Chavez's charges were ignored or ridiculed by Fujimori's government. He got some public attention in 1996, when he testified about the payoffs during a public hearing on drug trafficking. But days later, appearing gaunt and dazed, he recanted in a televised interview. ``I don't remember things. I'm not well. I talk to myself at night and scream,'' he told the court when asked why he had changed his testimony. He says now that hallucinogenic drugs had been slipped into his food. ``His argument that he was the victim of torture and manipulation with medication is absolutely credible,'' state's attorney Ugaz said. ``It is very probable that it was a part of a formula to prevent him from declaring what he knew.'' It was not the first episode suggesting manipulation by Montesinos' intelligence apparatus. A few months after his arrest in January 1994, a congressional delegation visited Chavez in his cell at the maximum security naval prison in Lima's port of Callao. They said they found him disoriented. He did not recognize his defense lawyer and remembered only half of his own name. He told the congressmen his jailers had performed surgery on him and he described a helmet being placed over his head. AP-NY-02-10-01 0229EST Copyright 2001 The Associated Press. The information contained in the AP news report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or otherwise distributed without the prior written authority of The Associated Press. All active hyperlinks have been inserted by AOL. To unsubscribe, write to CLC_LO-unsubscribe@listbot.com The Revolution will not be televised: News at 11... Jim W. Jaszewski
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