Vladimiro Montesinos

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Vladimiro Montesinos
Vladimiro Montesinos.jpg
Montesinos in 1992
Chief of the National Intelligence Service of Peru
De facto
In office
28 July 1990 � 14 September 2000
President Alberto Fujimori
Succeeded by Agency disbanded
Personal details
Born Vladimiro Lenin Ilich Montesinos Torres
20 May 1945 (age 76)
Arequipa, Peru
Nationality Peruvian
Political party Cambio 90-New Majority
(1990-2001)
Other political
affiliations Peru 2000
(1999�2001)
Alliance for the Future
(2005�2010)
Spouse(s) Trinidad Becerra
?
?(m. 1973; div. 2001)?
Children Silvana Montesinos Becerra
Alma mater US Army's School of the Americas
Military School of Chorillos

Montesinos in 1994
Vladimiro Lenin Ilich Montesinos Torres (born 20 May 1945) is a former long-
standing head of Peru's intelligence service, National Intelligence Service (SIN),
under President Alberto Fujimori. In the year 2000, the infamous "Vladi-videos"
came to light through the television: they were secret videos recorded by
Montesinos that showed him bribing elected congressmen into leaving the opposition
and joining the pro-Fujimori group of the Congress. The ensuing scandal caused
Montesinos to flee the country and prompted Fujimori's resignation.

Subsequent investigations revealed Montesinos to be at the centre of a vast web of

illegal activities, including embezzlement, graft, gunrunning, and drug
trafficking. He has been tried, convicted and sentenced for numerous charges.
Montesinos had strong connections with the CIA (the United States Central
Intelligence Agency) and was said to have received $10 million from the agency for
his government's anti-terrorist activities.[1] Montesinos is a cousin of the
incarcerated terrorist leader �scar Ram�rez Durand, a.k.a. "Feliciano".[2][3]

Contents
1 Early years and education
2 Career
2.1 1976 spying scandal
2.2 After military life
3 The Fujimori years
3.1 Political repression
3.2 Control of the media
3.3 2000 elections
3.4 Drug traffic
4 Downfall
4.1 The Vladi-videos
5 Trial
6 Notes
7 External links
Early years and education
Vladimiro Montesinos was born in the city of Arequipa, the capital of the Arequipa
Region in southern Peru. His parents, who were communists, named him after Vladimir
Lenin, the first leader of the Soviet Union.

In 1965, Montesinos graduated as a military cadet at the US Army's School of the

Americas in Panama. A year later, he graduated from the Military School of
Chorrillos, in Lima, Peru.

Career
In the early 1970s, during the leftist military junta of General Juan Velasco
Alvarado, Montesinos became a captain in the Peruvian army. By 1973, he had been
appointed to the role of aide to General Edgardo Mercado Jarr�n, who served as both
Prime Minister and Chief of the Armed Forces.

1976 spying scandal

In 1976, Major Jos� Fern�ndez Salvatteci of the Military Intelligence Service
(Spanish: Servicio de Inteligencia del Ej�rcito (SIE)) charged Montesinos with the
crimes of spying and treason, accusing him of delivering military documents to the
embassy of the United States in Lima. The documents included a list of weapons
which Peru had purchased from the Soviet Union. General Mercado ordered the charges
dropped.

That same year, Montesinos went on a two-week trip to Washington, D.C., paid for by
the United States government. Upon his return to Lima, he was arrested for having
failed to obtain formal government permission to make the trip. The subsequent
investigation revealed that top-secret documents had been found in his possession,
and that he had photographed them and given copies to the US Central Intelligence
Agency (CIA). Montesinos had travelled to the U.S. without authorization from army
command, and had forged military documents to allow him to complete the trip
without being detained. He visited several foreign institutions as an official
representative of the Peruvian army, also without authorization. Montesinos was
dishonorably discharged from the military and sentenced to a year in military
prison. This was a far less severe sentence than the customary death penalty that
was the punishment for traitors during the military regime.

Years later, declassified US State Department documents revealed the reason for the
CIA's interest in Montesinos. In the 1970s, Peru was governed by the only left-wing
regime in South America, a continent dominated by right-wing governments. Locked in
the Cold War with the Soviet Union and fearing its influence in the region, as well
as that of the Communist government of Cuba, the US was seeking information about
activities in Peru. Montesinos conjured up and told a story about potential attacks
against Peru's southern long-time rival, Chile, then ruled by dictator Augusto
Pinochet, an ally of the U.S. The operation, to be backed by the Cuban military,
had the objective of recovering the territory Peru had lost after the War of the
Pacific.[4]
After military life
In February 1978, Montesinos was freed after two years in jail. He was given work
by his cousin Sergio Cardenal Montesinos, a lawyer who persuaded him to pursue a
degree in law. In April of the same year, Montesinos applied to the National
University of San Marcos in Lima. He received his law diploma only three months
later, through fraudulent means. Book No. 24 of the University of San Marcos Office
of Records, where Montesinos' graduation would be noted, has disappeared from the
Office.[citation needed] Montesinos' undergraduate thesis and other materials
related to his academic record have never been produced.[citation needed]

On August 15, 1978, Montesinos used his degree to register as a lawyer with the
Superior Court of Lima. Ten days later, on August 25, 1978, he became a member of
the Lima bar association. He became notorious for representing a number of
Colombian and Peruvian members of the illegal drug trade, as well as police
officers accused of being involved in drug trafficking. Between 1978 and 1979, he
represented Colombian drug lords Evaristo "Pap� Doc" Porras Ardila and Jaime
Tamayo. In addition, he acted as guarantor on Tamayo's lease of several offices and
warehouses used to manufacture cocaine.

Between 1980 and 1983, Montesinos revealed sensitive information related to

military wiretapping and assassinations to the newspaper Kausachum, run by Augusto
Zimmerman, ex-spokesperson of deposed president Juan Velasco Alvarado. General
Carlos Brice�o, the Commander of the Peruvian Army, re-opened the investigation
into Montesinos' alleged treason.

Montesinos fled to Ecuador, where in 1984 he revealed information to the Ecuadorian

Army about Peru's military weapons purchases. The investigation was closed that
year in order to "protect institutional image", and Montesinos was allowed to
return to Peru.[citation needed]

The Fujimori years

Montesinos came to public notice again in 1990 when he defended Alberto Fujimori
against accusations of fraudulent real estate dealings, during the presidential
campaign, in which Fujimori was an obscure candidate. The paperwork in the case
disappeared and the charges were dropped. After Fujimori won the 1990 general
elections, on July 28 of Montesinos became his chief advisor and the effective head
of the National Intelligence Service (its acronym in Spanish is SIN).[citation
needed]

Political repression
Montesinos is widely accused of threatening or harassing Fujimori's political
opponents. Evidence proves that he supervised a death squad known as the Grupo
Colina, part of the National Intelligence Service, which was thought to have been
responsible for the Barrios Altos massacre and the La Cantuta massacre, actions
intended to repress the Shining Path (Sendero Luminoso), the major communist
insurgency movement that had been operating since the 1980s, but only resulted in
the execution of civilians.

Four officers who were tortured during interrogation after plotting a coup d'�tat
against Fujimori in November 1992 later stated that Montesinos took an active part
in torturing them. On March 16, 1998, former Peruvian Army Intelligence Agent Luisa
Zanatta accused Montesinos of ordering illegal wiretaps of leading politicians and
journalists. Zanatta also said that army intelligence agents had killed fellow
agent Mariella Barreto Riofano because she gave a magazine information about human
rights violations, as well as the location of bodies from the La Cantuta massacre.
Zanatta said that in early 1997, Barreto had told her that she was part of the
Grupo Colina death squad responsible for the La Cantuta massacre. Barreto's
dismembered body was found by a roadside on March 29, 1997 and showed evidence of
torture before death and mutilation.
Control of the media
During the Fujimori years, Montesinos gained extensive control over the Peruvian
media by bribing television channel executives. Bribes ranged from approximately
US$500,000 per month to Channels 2 and 5 to $1.5 million per month to Channel 4. In
total, Montesinos paid more than US$3 million per month in bribes to Peruvian
television channels.[5]

Montesinos funneled additional funds to the television channels through government

advertising. From 1997 to 1999, the Peruvian government increased their advertising
budget by 52%, becoming Peru's largest advertiser. Ultimately, Montesinos held
editorial control over Peru's free-to-air television networks: Frecuencia Latina,
Am�rica Televisi�n, Panamericana Televisi�n, ATV, and Red Global.[6]

To maintain this control he structured bribe payments in monthly installments,

limiting the risk of defection by the TV channel owners. He also ensured continued
cooperation through blackmail, utilizing video evidence of sexual indiscretions by
bribe recipients. To keep track of the numerous bribes and gain further evidence of
the owners' complicity, which could also be used as blackmail, Montesinos filmed
monetary exchanges and forced channel executives to sign contracts stipulating the
extent of influence he expected in return for the stated monetary bribe.[7]

The Fujimori government also controlled the content of Channel 7, Televisi�n

Nacional de Peru, which was explicitly state owned. Canal N, remained the only
independent television channel, funded entirely by monthly service fees. Montesinos
did not bribe Canal N because of their low viewership, numbering in the tens of
thousands, which was a result of the unaffordability of the monthly fees for most
Peruvians. Canal N was the first network to air the Kouri videotape, which exposed
the extent of Montesinos's corruption.[8]

In April 1997, Baruch Ivcher's Frecuencia Latina, Channel 2, broadcast allegations

by Peruvian Army Intelligence agent Leonor La Rosa that she was tortured by
intelligence agents. (Her testimony was later brought into question.[9][10])

On July 14, 1997, the government legally stripped Ivcher, a native Israeli, of his
Peruvian nationality for supposed offenses against the government. In September,
control of Channel 2 was given to minority shareholders more sympathetic to the
government. In response, former United Nations Secretary-General Javier P�rez de
Cu�llar said, "Peru is no longer a democracy. We are now a country headed by an
authoritarian regime."[citation needed]

2000 elections
Main article: 2000 Peruvian general election
The 2000 presidential elections, which followed years of political violence, was
controversial. A journalist claimed to have a videotape of Montesinos bribing
election officials to fix the vote. He claimed to have been kidnapped by secret
police agents, who sawed his arm to the bone to get him to give up the tape. In
view of such tactics, the Clinton administration threatened briefly not to
recognize Fujimori's victory. It backed off from this threat, and pressured
Fujimori's government to take action to root out abuses, including ousting
Montesinos.

Continuing political unrest in Peru would have represented a serious problem as US

operations against the FARC in Colombia got under way. Peru was needed as a base of
operations and a defensive backstop against guerrillas based in Colombia's south,
not far from the Peruvian border.[11]

Drug traffic
Allegations circulated that Montesinos and General Nicol�s Hermoza R�os, the
chairman of Peru's joint chiefs of staff, were taking protection money from drug
traffickers. Documents that were later declassified by the US government showed
that by 1996 the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) was aware of the
allegations.[12] Despite evidence that Montesinos was in business with Colombian
narco-traffickers, the CIA paid Montesinos's intelligence organization $1 million a
year for 10 years to fight drug trafficking.

One of the most notorious scandals during this period was the 11 May 1996 seizure
of 169�176 kg of cocaine (the quantity depends on the source) aboard a Peruvian Air
Force Douglas DC-8 (frequently confused in the media as the presidential Boeing 737
as it had operated on this role until the acquisition of the Boeing[13]) that was
about to depart on a mission to Russia (with stopovers at the Canary Islands and
Bordeaux), carrying military aviation equipment for maintenance.[14] The scandal
remains a mystery to this day because the drug's origin and destiny were never
determined and the investigations were compromised by Fujimori's corrupt government
and possibly Montesinos himself. A 2011 investigation revealed that some four drug
shipments were made abroad, with Miami listed as a destination, in air force planes
during 1993-1994. Only the material authors (several low-ranking officers) were
processed, acquitted and publicly defended by Fujimori in late 1997 (amongst them
Fujimori's aide-de-camp who was part of the plane's crew).[15]

Peruvian drug kingpin Demetrio Ch�vez Pe�aherrera, known as "El Vaticano",

testified that Montesinos was a protector of drug trafficking. During a trial
audience on August 16, 1996, Ch�vez Pe�aherrera stated that he had bribed members
of the Peruvian Armed Forces and Montesinos himself, as the effective chief of the
Peruvian Intelligence Service (SIN), to be able to operate freely in Campanilla, a
jungle area of the Huallaga region (where he operated an illegal airstrip).
Recordings of radio communications presented during the trial showed that members
of the army had let Ch�vez's organization operate freely in the Huallaga region in
exchange for bribes. During a latter appearance in the court, Ch�vez appeared
tortured and drugged, evidenced by his incoherent speaking.[citation needed] After
sentencing, while in prison, Ch�vez talked to the press and revealed that
Montesinos said to him at one point that he "did some work" with Pablo Escobar,
leader of the Medell�n Cartel.

Montesinos was paid US$50,000 a month during 1991 and 1992. As proof, the
government presented recordings during Ch�vez's trial of radio communications
between his drug traffickers and members of the Armed Forces attesting to bribery
of Montesinos.[16] In addition, Ch�vez said that retired general Nicol�s de Bari
Hermoza, the former chief of the Armed Forces Joint Command, and Fujimori had both
complete knowledge of the illicit acts of Montesinos.

Downfall
Frequently, Montesinos secretly videotaped himself bribing individuals in his
office, incriminating politicians, officials and military officers. His downfall
appears to have been precipitated by the discovery of a major illegal arms
shipment. Arranged by guerrilla leader Tom�s Medina Caracas, the arms were
airlifted from Jordan via Peru, to the FARC insurgent guerrillas in southern
Colombia.

Montesinos claimed the credit for uncovering the arms smuggling, which involved
upwards of 10,000 Kalashnikov assault rifles. Jordan rejected the Peruvian version
of events, insisting the shipments were legitimate government-to-government deals.
Evidence emerged which pointed to Montesinos having orchestrated the gun-running
operation rather than dismantling it. A senior Peruvian general was found to have
participated in the deal, and another principal participant was a government
contractor. He had signed at least eleven deals with the Fujimori regime, most of
them to provide supplies to the Peruvian military.
According to one report, a group of military officers angered by Montesinos's
apparent role in the arms deal broke into his offices and stole the video that was
subsequently broadcast.[citation needed] Because of the arms deal, Montesinos lost
the support of the US, which attached high strategic importance to crushing the
FARC.

The Vladi-videos
On 14 September 2000, Peruvian television broadcast a video of Montesinos bribing
an opposition congressman, Alberto Kouri, to support Per� 2000, Fujimori's party.
The video caused Fujimori's remaining support to collapse. He accepted the
resignation of Montesinos[17] and thanked him for his services.[18][19] He then
announced the dissolution of the National Intelligence Service (SIN) and new
elections, in which he would not run. Shortly thereafter, Montesinos sought
political asylum in Panama.[20]

In following months, some of the most infamous "Vladi-videos" were released. One
showed the owners of Channel 2 being offered US$500,000 a month to ban appearances
of the political opposition on their channel. Another showed Channel 4 owners
getting $1.5 million a month for similar cooperation. Others show Montesinos
counting out $350,000 in cash to Channel 5's proprietor, and the owner of Channel 9
receiving $50,000 to cancel an investigative series called SIN censura
(Uncensored). In June 2001, through the assistance of the U.S. Government,
Montesinos was turned over to the Venezuelan government in Caracas and extradited
back to Peru. Then his trial began.

Trial
Montesinos was convicted of embezzlement, illegal assumption of his post as
intelligence chief, abuse of power, influence peddling and bribery. Those charges
carried sentences of between five and fifteen years each, but Peruvian prison
sentences are served concurrently, so prosecutors continued to pursue him on
additional charges. He was acquitted of two specific charges of corruption and
conspiracy related to the mayor of Callao, whom he was alleged to have helped evade
drug-trafficking charges.

Montesinos is currently imprisoned at the maximum security naval base prison in

Callao (which was built under his orders during the 1990s) and is serving 15 years
in prison, but he will have to face at least 8 more trials in the next years. In
total he was accused of sixty-three crimes that range from drug trafficking to
murder.

In August 2004, U.S. officials returned to Peru $20 million in funds embezzled by
Montesinos; it had been deposited in U.S. banks by two men working for him. Prime
Minister Carlos Ferrero and other prosecutors believed that the total amount
embezzled by Montesinos during his tenure at the National Intelligence Service
surpassed one billion dollars, most of which was deposited in foreign banks.

In October 2004 Wilmer Yarleque Ordinola, 44, was apprehended in Virginia in the US
and convicted of immigration fraud. He had been working as a construction laborer
without papers. The Peruvian government sought his extradition as an alleged member
of Montesino's Grupo Colina and responsible for 26-35 of the 7,260 deaths or
"disappearances" which the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (Peru) attributed to
the group. In October 2004 Yarleque was being held by the U.S. Marshals in
Alexandria, Virginia.[21] The suspect was initially granted a writ of habeas
corpus, as he argued that he could not be extradited for political offenses
committed for the government, but the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth
Circuit reversed that decision in 2005, opening the way for his extradition.[22]

Montesinos was sentenced in September 2006 to a 20-year prison term for his direct
involvement in an illegal arms deal to provide 10,000 assault weapons to Colombian
rebels. Tribunal judges made their ruling based on evidence that placed Montesinos
at the center of an intricate web of negotiations designed to transport assault
rifles from Jordan to the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia FARC.[23]

In 2007 Montesinos was on trial for allegedly ordering the extra-judicial killings
of the hostage-takers from the left-wing T�pac Amaru Revolutionary Movement (MRTA)
during the 1997 Japanese embassy hostage crisis. The former chief of the armed
forces, Nicolas de Bari Hermoza [es], and retired Colonel Roberto Huaman were also
charged with ordering the extrajudicial execution of the 14 rebels. This action
followed the government's commando raid in April to free the more than 70 diplomats
who had been held hostage for more than four months in the Japanese embassy. The
Peruvian special forces' recapture resulted in the deaths of one hostage, two
commandos and all of the MRTA rebels. The former Japanese political attach�
Hidetaka Ogura, one of the hostages freed from the Embassy, stated that he saw at
least three of the MRTA rebels captured alive. If convicted, Montesinos and the two
former military officers face up to 20 years in prison.[24] Montesinos, Hermoza and
Huaman were acquitted of those charges in 2012, as the court found that a chain of
command linking the accused to the killings had not been proven.[25]

In August 2012 Montesinos and the former chief of the Peruvian Air Force, Waldo
Richter, were acquitted of drug trafficking for the 1996 Air Force plane case. He
had been involved by a number of drug traffickers.[26][27]