Lori Helene Berenson (born November 13, 1969)[1] is an American who served a 20-year prison sentence for collaboration with a guerrilla organization in Peru in 1996.
[8][7][9] On her web site, she states that she volunteered for soup kitchens and blood banks and also worked as a mother's helper in the Hamptons as a teenager.
[11] Later, she went to El Salvador and became secretary and interpreter for Leonel González, a leader of the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN), during negotiations that achieved peace in 1992.
[11][13][14] Berenson obtained press credentials for herself and her photographer to the Congress of Peru to interview some of its members and attend sessions where she took notes and sketched a seating plan.
[15] Berenson and those who supported her contended that she was on assignment from two U.S. publications, Modern Times and Third World Viewpoint, to work as a free-lance journalist writing articles about the effects of poverty on women in Perú.
[17] Diagrams, notes, weapons, and police and military uniforms found at the safe house suggested that the group was planning to seize members of Congress and trade them for captured guerrillas.
After being taken to the house siege, in which Berenson claims she was used as a human shield by the Peruvian police, both women were taken to the DINCOTE (División Nacional Contra el Terrorismo, or National Counterterrorism Division).
At the event, she shouted in Spanish, with her fists clenched to her sides, in a statement to the local reporters: I am to be condemned for my concern about the conditions of hunger and misery which exists in this country.
[17] Her supporters later offered the explanation that her vehement defense of MRTA came about because she was angry over the treatment of a wounded cell mate and that she was instructed by authorities to shout in order to be heard.
[18] After she was tried in 1996 and sentenced to life imprisonment, Berenson became, as The Guardian put it, a "cause celèbre for human rights campaigners and a symbol for leftwing social activists around the world",[19] except in Peru, where parties and newspapers across the political spectrum condemned her actions, and criticized the unwillingness of European and American media, even progressive ones, to apply the label "terrorist" to citizens of "First World" countries.
[22] In accordance with anti-terrorism legislation enacted during a state of emergency declared by the authoritarian[23][24][25] government of President Alberto Fujimori, Berenson was tried in a closed courtroom by a military tribunal on a charge of treason against the fatherland for leadership of a terrorist organization.
On January 11, 1996, six weeks after her arrest and three days after her presentation to the media, Berenson was convicted of all charges and sentenced to life in prison without parole.
Due to the nature of the closed military court, human rights campaigners protested her conviction and disputed the fairness of the proceedings.
Working Group on Arbitrary Detention found that Ms. Berenson had been arbitrarily deprived of her liberty in violation of various articles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, of which Peru is a signatory.
[27] According to the Carter Center among the violations of international legal standards and due process, "Ms. Berenson's trial was in a secret military court, where her lawyer was not allowed to cross-examine witnesses or challenge evidence," and former president Carter stated directly that he was "deeply concerned that Lori Berenson has not been afforded her rights of due process by law.
[35] Amnesty criticized the Peruvian anti-terrorism legislation, stating that, "it is unacceptable for hundreds of political prisoners like Berenson not to be able to exercise their basic human right to a fair and public hearing by an independent and impartial tribunal.
[36] On July 21, 1999, the United States House of Representatives voted against an amendment sponsored by US Rep. Maxine Waters described as "to express the sense of Congress concerning support for democracy in Peru and the release of Lori Berenson".
[37] In January 2002 Thomas Gumbleton, Bishop of Archdiocese of Detroit and founder of Pax Christi USA, visited with Berenson to work with Peruvian government officials "for her release.
"[38] Columns were written for American newspapers, such as The Washington Post and The New York Times, calling on the US to pressure Peru to free Berenson.
Her parents had a short independent film made in protest against her earlier military trial, and her story was reported on several top television news shows.
[citation needed] Berenson spent her early years in prison at facilities high in the Andes, the first of which the Inter-American Court ruled is operated inhumanely.
[29][30][41] The Yanamayo prison where Berenson was initially held for about three years lies at about 3,800 metres (12,500 ft) above sea level near Lake Titicaca in the Puno Region, in southern Peru.
When he was released in 2003 on conditional liberty (parole) in Lima, his travel was restricted, and he was accordingly not present at the wedding in Cajamarca and had to be represented by his father.
[36] Periodically, through her freelori.org web page[46] entitled "Lori's Words," Berenson issued advice to youth as well as criticism of the policies of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, the war in Iraq, the "American Way of Life," the Peruvian "political class," and allegations of maltreatment and torture of prisoners.
[11] Peru's Justice Minister Victor García Toma on May 3, 2010, stated that "I don't think Lori Berenson can create harm for society, but she has created anger among citizens," and recommended that the remaining five years of her sentence be commuted and that she be expelled from Peru to the U.S., indicating that his recommendation was based on a legal and political analysis of the circumstances.
[55] Peru's Minister of Justice, García Toma, stated that the Cabinet might commute Berenson's sentence and expel her from the country.
[55] With protesters gathering daily outside her Lima apartment building, lighting candles and demanding that she be either deported from Peru or reimprisoned, Berenson sent a letter to President Alan García acknowledging her "criminal responsibility for terrorist collaboration", and further writing, "I would also like to say that I very much regret the harm I have caused Peruvian society, and I ask forgiveness from people who have been affected by my actions or words.
Peru's state attorney for counterterrorism, Julio Galindo, appealed Berenson's parole, depicting her as a calculating, unrepentant extremist who posed a continuing threat to the Peruvian public.
Berenson and her attorney told reporters that the ruling was final and could not be appealed by prosecutors, ending eight months of legal uncertainty.