[Ppnews] Peru judge grants paroled US activist Lori Berenson NY visit for holidays

[Political Prisoner News]

Peru judge grants paroled US activist Lori Berenson NY visit for holidays

    * Article by: FRANK BAJAK , Associated Press
    * http://www.startribune.com/world/135728498.html
    * Updated: December 16, 2011 - 8:41 AM

LIMA, Peru - A Peruvian court is allowing paroled U.S. activist Lori 
Berenson and her toddler son to travel to New York for the holidays, 
she and her father said on Friday.

Mark Berenson told The Associated Press by phone from his Manhattan 
home that Berenson had obtained permission to leave Peru from Dec. 16 
to Jan. 11.

"I'm very glad that Peru is respecting its laws and human rights," he 
said. "As Lori says, if she doesn't come home, let Interpol arrest her."

Lori Berenson was paroled last year after serving 15 years for aiding 
leftist rebels, but she cannot leave Peru permanently until her 
sentence ends in 2015.

Her father told the AP on Friday he is "petrified" a negative local 
reaction to the New York visit could prevent the trip.

"My worry is that there's going to be screaming to stop this," he 
said. Some Peruvians consider her a terrorist, opposed her parole and 
have publicly insulted her on the street.

He said that as far as he knew, his 42-year-old daughter was still 
trying to buy a ticket for herself and son Salvador, who is 2 1/2.

"It's not going to be easy," he said. Flights are heavily booked and 
prices high at this time of year.

Reached by the AP, Lori Berenson confirmed her court permission by a 
text message but added: "I am not speaking to the press."

She has been repeatedly hounded and mobbed by Peruvian news news 
media, which has occasionally frightened young Salvador. Last month, 
one TV channel obtained her new address and showed video of her home 
on television, her father said.

"It was very dangerous," he added. "The (U.S.) Embassy complained."

His daughter is separated from Salvador's father, Anibal Apari, whom 
she met in prison and who serves as her lawyer.

He also confirmed the court's approval of the New York trip to 
Peruvian TV reporters on Friday.

Mark Berenson, 69, said his daughter is looking forward to seeing 
relatives she hasn't met since her 20s, including his 96-year-old aunt.

Since her initial parole in May 2010, Lori Berenson repeatedly 
expressed regret for aiding the rebel Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement.

Arrested in 1995, the former MIT student was accused of helping the 
rebels plan an armed takeover of Congress, an attack that never happened.

A military court convicted her the following year and sentenced her 
to life in prison for sedition. But after intense U.S. government 
pressure, she was retried in civil courts in 2001 and sentenced to 20 
years for terrorist collaboration.

Berenson was unrepentant at the time of her arrest, but softened 
during years of sometimes harsh prison conditions, eventually being 
praised as a model prisoner.

Yet she is viewed by many as a symbol of the 1980-2000 rebel conflict 
that claimed some 70,000 lives. The fanatical Maoist Shining Path 
movement did most of the killing, while Tupac Amaru was a lesser player.

Berenson has acknowledged helping the rebels rent a safe house, where 
authorities seized a cache of weapons. But she insists she didn't 
know guns were being stored there. She denies ever belonging to Tupac 
Amaru or engaging in violent acts.

In an interview with the AP last year, Berenson said she was deeply 
troubled at having become Peru's "face of terrorism."

Its most famous prisoner, she also became a politically convenient 
scapegoat, she said.




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