Jaime Francisco Sebastián Castillo Petruzzi, known as Torito (Little Bull), is a Chilean former militant of the left-wing organization Movimiento de Izquierda Revolucionaria who worked with the Túpac Amaru Revolutionary Movement during the internal conflict in Peru.
In the University of Paris he met fellow students, future MRTA leader Víctor Polay Campos and ex-president of Peru, Alan García.
Around 1987, the military failure and numerous inside political differences that plagued the MRTA led Polay to contact Castillo and urge him to go to Peru and join his organization.
Castillo was condemned by the Peruvian State for kidnapping prominent businessmen during this period, who were kept in cárceles del pueblo (people's jails) and usually exchanged for money to buy modern weaponry and equipment.
[1] After a three-hour trial, Castillo was summarily sentenced to life in prison by a special military court of masked judges for traición a la patria (high-treason).
[2] In 1999, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights ruled that the trial against Chilean citizens Jaime Francisco Sebastián Castillo Petruzzi, María Concepción Pincheira Sáez, Lautaro Enrique Mellado Saavedra, and Alejandro Luis Astorga Valdez was invalid due to a violation of nine articles of the Inter-American Convention on Human Rights by the Peruvian State.
The following month they were transferred to Lima, and the new Peruvian government (Valentín Paniagua) decided to rejoin the Inter-American Commission for Human Rights and accepted its verdict in the case of Castillo Petruzzi.
[citation needed] The medical report says Castillo suffered from multiple bruises, 55 cuts to the head, a ruptured meniscus in his right knee and sharps injuries in the body.
[citation needed] After three quarters of his sentence was served, in February 2010, advocates for Castillo complained that he could have been released with credit for work and study under extant Peruvian rules.