Vladimiro Montesinos, convicted of the murder of an intelligence agent 26 years later

When the torso of her body was found in a bag, northeast of Lima, Petty Officer Mariela Barreto Riofano was 28 years old and the mother of a girl and a newborn. She was running on March 23, 1997 and Peru was plunged into a spiral of violence, in the second five years of Alberto Fujimori. A crisis that had been aggravated by a massive kidnapping that had kept the country and the world on edge for three months: the seizure of the residence of the Japanese ambassador in Lima, Morihisa Aoki. Terrorists from the Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement (MRTA) had taken diplomats, high authorities and even relatives of Fujimori hostage, and had promised to release them only in exchange for the release of more than 400 of their comrades who were in prison. The uncertainty was eternal. Vladimir Montesinos. Fujimori’s then presidential adviser and head of the National Intelligence Service (SIN), was sentenced this Friday to 23 years in prison for that crime.

Two weeks before the murder of Barreto, an agent of the Army Intelligence Service (SIE), the erretistas declared that they had heard strange sounds under the residence. It was about soldiers digging with picks and lamps. Although before the international community, the Government insisted on seeking a peaceful solution, in reality, it had opted for force. He ordered the construction of a series of tunnels to penetrate the residence and surprise the kidnappers, as finally happened, in what was called the Chavin de Huantar operation. The secret that was no longer a secret was published by the most emblematic newspapers in the country the day after what the terrorists said. Mariela Barreto was attributed to having leaked information about the operation to the press, which was denied by the newspaper’s investigative journalist The Republic, Edmundo Cruz, who assures that his medium discovered it in the middle of field work. “The hypothesis that agent Mariela Barreto Riofano has been murdered based on a falsehood must be considered and investigated rigorously and with integrity,” he wrote a few years ago.

The truth is that Barreto had been investigated by the Army Inspectorate for several months. She was constantly interrogated, even until she gave birth to her second daughter in January 1997, as she was considered a informer by her former colleagues from the Colina Group. This paramilitary command —created in the 1990s to attack government opponents and which she joined— was convinced that Barreto had leaked data on the Bermuda Plan, which consisted of attacking one of her most tenacious adversaries: the journalist Cesar Hildebrandt. In the same way, she was accused of allegedly having provided the location of the bodies of the La Cantuta massacre, in which a dozen university students and a professor accused of terrorism were dismembered and burned in 1992.

This Friday, 26 years after the macabre murder of Mariela Barreto —her head never appeared—, the Judiciary has found both guilty. Montesinos, who followed the hearing virtually from the Callao Naval Base prison, has been sentenced to 23 years in prison for the crime of qualified homicide with the aggravating factor of treachery after determining that he is the mediate author of the crime. While Santiago Martin Rivas has received the same sentence, although in his case it has been resolved that he was the perpetrator. Effective prison was also ordered for others involved such as the former head of the SIE, former colonel Carlos Sanchez Noriega (15 years old) and former commander Jose Salinas Zuzunaga (8 years old).

The ruling, however, is controversial because the Court has decided that the sentence be included in the sentences that the defendants are already serving. That is to say, no more years will be added, but the sentence will be consolidated into a greater sentence. This is the case of Vladimiro Montesinos, sentenced to 25 years (from June 25, 2001 to June 24, 2026), for the La Cantuta and Barrios Altos massacres. Both crimes perpetrated by the Colina Group. The same happens with Santiago Martin Rivas, also sentenced to 25 years (from November 27, 200 to November 27, 2027). Of course, a payment of $138,000 has been imposed on both of them in favor of the legal heirs of Mariela Barreto: her daughters, the two girls who grew up without a mother and could never give her a complete burial. When Montesinos was questioned about the crime this morning, he said without blinking: “I reserve the right.”