Vladimiro Montesinos

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Montesinos

Vladimiro Lenin Montesinos Torres (born May 20, 1945 in Arequipa , Peru ) is a former Peruvian government official who headed the Peruvian Secret Service (SIN) between 1990 and 2000 under the government of Alberto Fujimori .

Career

In 1965, Montesinos completed cadet training in Panama at the Escuela de Las Américas (a US training facility in the Panama Canal Zone for Latin American military officers). In 1966 he successfully completed the military school of Escuela Militar de Chorrillos and was promoted to captain of the Peruvian army . In 1976 he was embroiled in a conspiracy directed against the participation of the people in the formation of political will and wanted to eliminate the power of the trade unions.

In the same year he traveled to the USA without permission from his superiors to sell secrets of the Peruvian army to the CIA . Upon his return, he was discharged from the army and sentenced to one year in prison for treason.

He studied law and began defending Colombian and Peruvian drug traffickers and drug trafficked police officers, making a huge fortune.

Fujimori's election worker

In 1983 he was tried in a military tribunal for instigating a military coup , but was acquitted of innocence.

At the end of the 1980s (under the government of Alan García ) Montesinos began to work for the "Servicio de Inteligencia" (secret service). He was crucial in the second round of the Peruvian presidential election of 1990, as he actively supported the candidate Alberto Fujimori against the candidate Mario Vargas Llosa . In doing so, he made available to Fujimori the intelligence about Vargas Llosa.

Roberto Escobar, brother of the then Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar , first stated in November 2000 that Montesinos had asked and received one million US dollars from Pablo Escobar in 1989 for Fujimori's election campaign.

Fujimori regime intelligence chief

In 1990 he defended presidential candidate Alberto Fujimori on charges of fraud and embezzlement, but the evidence mysteriously disappeared. After taking office, Fujimori appointed him de facto head of the SIN secret service - officially he was the president's advisor on security issues. At the same time he was the indirect superior of the Colina group of the Army Intelligence Service, i.e. the paramilitaries who carried out massacres in the slums of Lima in 1992 .

On April 5, 1992, when Fujimori suspended the constitution and the judiciary, Montesinos dismissed unpleasant judges and publicly took revenge on the journalist Gustavo Gorriti , who had followed Montesino's activities for years. He also deposed numerous police generals who had arrested his drug-related clients. In 1993, General Rodolfo Robles , who had reported Montesinos for the massacres committed by the Colina group, was able to flee to the US embassy to avoid being arrested by Montesinos.

In 1996 the Peruvian Congress (the parliament controlled by Fujimori at the time) rejected a motion by the opposition to investigate the Montesinos case. A drug dealer arrested the same year testified that he was paying Montesinos a monthly protection fee, but withdrew his testimony under visible signs of torture.

1997 shone a Peruvian stations allegations of an agent of the secret of torture by the intelligence and information on the income Montesinos in the amount of 600,000 USD from what the owner of the transmitter, the Peruvian nationality was revoked.

During his work in the service of Fujimori, Montesinos put large sums of money into foreign bank accounts. It was not until February 2013 that the current Peruvian government's anti-corruption officer was able to start repaying more than 31 million US dollars that Montesinos had deposited with Swiss and Luxembourg banks.

Facilitation payments, escape, extradition and conviction

In September 2000, opposition Congressman Fernando Olivera Vega broadcast a video across the country showing Montesinos handing over $ 15,000 in money to opposition MP Alberto Kouri for joining the pro-presidential electoral alliance of 2000. After this incident, Fujimori was forced to hold elections for the following year. The secret service was shut down. A week later, Montesinos fled to Panama, returned to Peru in October and then fled to an unknown destination on a sailing ship.

In June 2001 he was located in Venezuela and extradited to Peru. Between July 2000 and April 2012, he was sentenced to a total of 256 years' imprisonment in several trials on numerous charges, which are, however, served in parallel. In July 2012, the Peruvian Supreme Court reduced its maximum sentence from 25 to 20 years. He is currently serving his sentence at the Callao naval base .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Peru Congress Ousts Its president, Fujimori Ally. In: New York Times of November 14, 2000, accessed November 28, 2013 (English)
  2. ↑ José Ospina: Perú recupera dinero escondido por Montesinos en Europa. In: DW.de from February 21, 2013, accessed on November 28, 2013 (Spanish)
  3. ↑ Vladimiro Lenin Montesinos Torres. ( Memento of March 6, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) In: TRIAL , accessed on November 28, 2013 (English)
personal data
SURNAME Montesinos, Vladimiro
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Montesinos Torres, Vladimiro Lenin (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Peruvian politician
DATE OF BIRTH May 20, 1945
PLACE OF BIRTH Arequipa , Peru