You’d think they could have been a bit more careful about their grammar if they were going to put her away for 20 years. She was convicted of treason, but she’s not a Peruvian citizen or even a Peruvian national. Who was the prosecutor, Sarah Palin? Possible, of course, that this is simply a translation issue.
Otherwise, I don’t see what the big deal is. Revolutionary or terrorist, being sent to prison kind of goes along with conspiring to overthrow governments.
I did read the whole article, and the Wikipedia article, and it’s pretty damning how she kept lying about her involvement.
First she said she had no idea they were MRTA. And made an ill-advised loud public statement about how she was innocent, but that she thought the MRTA were revolutionaries and not terrorists. Not exactly the way to get the public on your side. She was sentenced to life imprisonment.
Even when she got a new trial in 2000, she still denied that she had known they were MRTA. Her sentence was reduced to 20 years (including time served) as a result of the trial, which found she collaborated with terrorists but was not a terrorist herself.
Now she admits she knew they were MRTA and she sublet her apartment to them, but she claims she didn’t know they had weapons stored there and she didn’t know what they were planning. She says it was some denial and head in the sand behaviour on her part and that she just avoided doing anything when she got in over her head.
So the impression I get it that the first trial (military tribunal) was likely unfair, and given the government and political climate it was operating under I wouldn’t trust that their verdict was correct and/or the sentence was too harsh.
However, I don’t think the new sentence in 2000 was out of line. 20 years seems maybe a little long but still justifiable, even if you take Bereson at her word for what she says now (that she knowingly sublet her apartment to violent terrorists, even if she may not have known they had guns in her apartment), and that when she visited Congress as a journalist she knowingly snuck in the wife of a top MRTA leader as her “photographer” (and said photographer reported back to the MRTA on the layout and security of the building).