[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 90 (Friday, June 25, 2004)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E1266]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                DEVELOPMENTS WITH THE LORI BERENSON CASE

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                        HON. CAROLYN B. MALONEY

                              of new york

                    in the house of representatives

                        Thursday, June 24, 2004

  Mrs. MALONEY. Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to read this excerpt 
from ``Whatever Happened to Lori Berenson, President Toledo's Trophy 
Prisoner?'' This analysis was prepared by Abigail Jones, Research 
Associate at the Council on Hemispheric Affairs, and presents factual 
documentation about the recent developments in the case of my 
constituent, Lori Berenson, who has been imprisoned for eight and a 
half years in Peru. During her imprisonment, she has never received a 
fair trial. I remain hopeful that the Peruvian government will release 
Lori from prison. It is time for her to come home.
  (Excerpt): ``Lori Berenson, a 34-year-old New York native, has spent 
eight-and-a-half years incarcerated in Peru without the benefit of a 
fair and impartial trial--until now. Berenson's most recent trial was 
heard on May 7, 2004, in San Jose, Costa Rica before the Inter-American 
Court of Human Rights, the OAS's highest judicial body for the regional 
organization's member states. The CIDH exerts jurisdiction over OAS 
members who have ratified the American Convention on Human Rights, 
which Peru has endorsed. It is of note that this Court does not 
adjudicate the innocence or guilt of a defendant, but rather evaluates 
a state's compliance to the tenets of the Convention. The Court 
consented to hear Berenson's case upon the request of the InterAmerican 
Commission on Human Rights (IACHR), after the Peruvian government 
failed to comply with the Commission's 2002 recommendations calling for 
the restoration of Berenson's rights, monetary compensation for damages 
incurred while in prison and a general overhaul of the anti-terrorism 
laws that have condemned hundreds if not thousands of Peruvian 
nationals under the Alberto Fujimori regime (1990-2000), to a parody of 
properly administered justice.
  ``If Berenson were to be exonerated of her alleged offense, the 
Peruvian government would be obliged to comply with the Court's 
judgment, based on Article 68 of the American Convention on Human 
Rights; this clause asserts that, `The States party to the Convention 
undertake to comply with the judgment of the Court in any case to which 
they are parties.' Former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark 
represented Berenson throughout the Court proceedings and was assisted 
by noted criminal and international lawyer Thomas H. Nooter as well as 
Peruvian lawyer Jose Luis Sandoval Quesada. The Court's ruling will 
likely be handed down later this year. . .
  ``In December of 1994, Berenson allegedly arrived in Peru as a 
journalist to work for two small American publications, Modern Times 
and Third World Viewpoint. On Nov. 30, 1995, the Peruvian police 
arrested her aboard a public bus on charges of `treason against the 
fatherland.' After being illegally interrogated by the police without 
the benefit of a defense counsel, Berenson appeared before a `faceless' 
military court that had a 97 percent conviction rate. In a grossly 
contrived trial before a hooded military judge who most likely hadn't 
attended a day of law school, this court sentenced her to life in 
prison for her suspected leadership position in the Tupac Amaru 
Revolutionary Movement (MRTA) and for the role she purportedly played 
in plotting a foiled attempt to abduct members of Peru's Congress. 
However, after years of outraged international protest over her 
patently inequitable trial, she continues to serve a 20-year sentence, 
after a civilian court overturned the '96 supreme military court's 
decision on the basis of newly obtained evidence that proved she was 
not a leader of the MRTA. She was then convicted on a lesser offense of 
abetting a terrorist organization. The civilian court acquitted 
Berenson of both membership in and militancy with a subversive 
organization.''

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