News stories by Ángel Páez, page 8

The Peruvian justice system has the confessions of three convicted former ministers in the government of former President Alberto Fujimori (1990-2000), to support corruption charges against him, prosecutor Avelino Guillén told IPS.

Retired military officers facing prosecution in Peru for cases of corruption or human rights violations allegedly committed during the 1980-2000 civil war are awaiting trial in the comfort of their homes.

Trials on human rights abuses committed during Peru’s 1980-2000 civil war hurt military morale because 'they leave the impression that those of us who fought in the counterinsurgency war were only dedicated to killing civilians,' said Peruvian army chief Otto Guibovich.

Business Track, a private security firm, was engaged in spying on non-governmental organisations, environmental activists, social movements and opposition groups in Peru, sources in the police, prosecutor’s office and courts investigating the case told IPS.

'I became a journalist to find out how they killed my father, to discover where his body is, and to take those responsible for his death to court,' Boris Ayala told IPS. 'I am not going to rest until I find out the whole truth.'

At the government's request, the Peruvian parliament has set up a commission to investigate alleged irregularities in the sale of Petro Tech Peruana (PTP) to Ecopetrol, the Colombian state oil company, and the South Korean National Oil Corporation (KNOC). But opposition politicians are sceptical of the outcome and have refused to participate.

The discovery of more and more bodies of victims of Peru’s dirty war on the grounds of the Los Cabitos military base, which served as a torture and extermination centre during the 1980-2000 armed conflict, have substantiated the accounts of political prisoners who managed to survive.

Peruvian prosecutors and police have busted a ring of active and retired Peruvian navy intelligence agents who moonlighted as telephone tapping experts allegedly engaged in spying.

The global economic crisis apparently has not affected the Peruvian government’s plan to modernise the armed forces, which is to cost 650 million dollars from here to 2011.

Two couriers from the Netherlands caught trying to smuggle 3.2 kilos of cocaine out of Peru may now be able to serve out their sentences in their own country.