Peru's fallen spymaster prepares for trial with a bag of tricks

www.sfgate.com MONTE HAYES, Associated Press Writer Saturday, February 15, 2003

(02-15) 09:15 PST LIMA, Peru (AP) --

Vladimiro Montesinos was once the most feared man in Peru, the untouchable spymaster dapper in his Italian silk ties, Christian Dior shirts and diamond-studded Rolex watches.

These days he's in isolation at a maximum-security prison, sleeping on a thin foam mattress over a cold slab of concrete and taking medicine for depression, high blood pressure and gastritis.

Many Peruvians say Montesinos deserves to spend the rest of his life there because of the criminal empire he ran for a decade while he was the right-hand to since ousted President Alberto Fujimori.

But the wily lawyer is believed to still have powerful friends within the judiciary he controlled during Fujimori's authoritarian rule, and he is striving mightily to avoid long jail time despite a mountain of charges. Many people worry he may walk free in a few years.

With one of the many trials he faces scheduled to begin Tuesday and another Friday, Peruvians are hoping they'll finally get to see Montesinos squirm as he begins to answer to some of the 60-plus charges that include corruption, drug trafficking, arms dealing and running a death squad.

The investigation has implicated a swath of Peruvian society, from politicians and judges to a talk show host and a former soccer star.

The prosecution is considered the most complicated in Peru's history. And in Montesinos, Peru's notoriously inefficient and corrupt court system is confronting a master of manipulation who learned his wiles early from his father, who once faked his own wake to hear what people would say about him.

It has been 20 months since Montesinos was captured in Venezuela after he made a sensational cloak-and-dagger escape from Peru, skipping by yacht and small plane through Central America and the Caribbean.

After his arrest, the 57-year-old Montesinos used his knowledge of the law to delay his trials. His strategy has been to stall, gain time, cooperate on minor charges and deny all guilt on more serious charges.

Montesinos recently complained to prison psychologists that he was having thoughts of suicide, bringing charges from some that it was yet another ploy to win further delay.

"It's part of his strategy. As far as I'm concerned, it's a theatrical act," said Francisco Loayza, a former member of Peru's intelligence service who has known Montesinos since the 1970s and has written a book about him, "The Dark Face of Power."

Loayza introduced Montesinos to Fujimori during Fujimori's first presidential campaign in 1990. The candidate was facing a tax evasion investigation and was desperate for help. Montesinos used his contacts in the judiciary to torpedo the probe, and became Fujimori's most trusted aide.

Montesinos' first two trials are on relatively minor charges. In one he is accused of using his influence to get his girlfriend's brother out of prison. In the second, he is charged with contributing $25,000 in public money to the campaign of a candidate for mayor, an act documented in one of the hundreds of infamous "Vladi videos" he taped during private meetings with Peru's political elite.

"Montesinos' central objective is to be sentenced for minor charges that carry a maximum sentence of 10 years," Loayza said. "With time off for good behavior, he will be out of prison in three to four years. That would be a total success for Montesinos."

Prison sentences do not accumulate in Peru, meaning that if Montesinos was convicted on dozens of charges carrying a maximum of 10 years each, he would serve no more than 10 years.

A judge has already thrown out one drug-trafficking charge carrying a life sentence, ruling there was insufficient evidence. The prosecution has appealed the decision to a higher court.

Ronald Gamarra, a special state attorney assigned to the investigation, said Montesinos' tactics were wearing down the judges.

"I think the judicial authorities could be doing more than they are at this time," he said.

Also working in Montesinos' favor are the changes in Peru since the collapse of Fujimori's 10-year rule in November 2000, two months after a television station broadcast a video showing Montesinos bribing an opposition congressman to support the government.

With the election of President Alejandro Toledo in 2001, Peru returned to a full democracy and plunged back into nasty partisan politics, tumultuous sessions in Congress and allegations of corruption in the new government. As a result, Montesinos has been pushed off the front pages.

Public anger over the hundreds of millions of dollars that Montesinos and his cronies amassed in foreign bank accounts has begun to wane.

"People have to think about putting food on the table, finding a job," said Melissa Dominguez, a 28-year-old lawyer. "In the long run we end up forgetting."

One place where people maintain a vivid interest in Montesinos' fate is Arequipa, the volcano-ringed city where he grew up. Former friends, neighbors and relatives there trace his quest for power and wealth to a childhood dominated by his father, Francisco Montesinos.

An ardent Marxist with a penchant for imported whiskey but little ability to make a decent living, Francisco named the boy after Vladimir Lenin, the Soviet Union's founder.

Vladimiro and his siblings were raised in Tingo, a neighborhood of cobblestone streets and narrow alleys in Peru's second largest city, 465 miles southeast of Lima.

Memories of Tingo's most famous son and his father linger -- particularly about the phony wake.

After adorning his living room with candles and funeral wreaths, Montesinos' father propped open the window and lay in a coffin, his eyes shut and arms crossed over his chest.

"He did it so he could listen to the people talk about him, to hear who held him in high regard and who criticized him," said Pastora Pacheco, a neighborhood pastry vendor.

Andres Bedoya, Vladimiro's second cousin and a newspaper columnist in Arequipa, described Francisco Montesinos as "a complete nut," whose obsessive behavior eventually drove away the son.

The last thing Francisco Montesinos told his son before they parted ways was "never be poor." By all accounts, Vladimiro took that advice to heart.

When the elder Montesinos killed himself in the mid-1970s, Bedoya recalled, Vladimiro's initial reaction was: "Do you think this will affect my military career?"

But it was an accusation in 1976 that Montesinos sold state secrets to the CIA that derailed the then army captain's rise through the ranks. Cashiered from the army, he served a year in a military prison.

He spent the 1980s as a defense lawyer for drug traffickers, cultivating valuable contacts within the judiciary and prosecutor's office, ties that leapfrogged him into government power when he was able to fix Fujimori's tax problem.

Today, Fujimori lives in self-exile in Japan, the homeland of his parents. He is protected by Japanese citizenship from efforts by Peru to extradite him to face charges of embezzlement and sanctioning a death squad to kill suspected collaborators of leftist rebels.

Fujimori denies the accusations and says he was betrayed by Montesinos.

Montesinos answers that everything he did was at the request of his former boss. He has challenged Fujimori to return to Peru so the two of them -- "like men" -- can together face the consequences of their actions.