Peru’s Premier Reportedly Quits Over Rights Case
LIMA, Peru — Peruvian Prime Minister Alfonso Bustamante has resigned over a human rights controversy, government sources said Wednesday.
Bustamante quit over enactment of a law last week that sent a sensitive human rights case to the military court, the sources said.
The case involved 11 army officers accused of killing nine students and a professor from La Cantuta University.
The officers allegedly abducted the 10 people from the army-occupied teachers college campus on July 17, 1992, and executed them hours later at a police firing range east of Lima. The bodies were buried there and at a dump site.
Officials said Wednesday that a military prosecutor has sought prison terms of four to 20 years for nine of the 11 defendants.
A spokesman for the Supreme Council of Military Justice said that Col. Raul Talledo requested the sentences Tuesday.
The officers initially were charged in a civilian court. But last week, Peru’s Congress and President Alberto Fujimori changed the law on jurisdictional disputes to allow the Supreme Court to send the case to a closed military tribunal.
Sources close to Bustamante said Wednesday that he resigned after disagreeing with that law, widely criticized as interference in the autonomy of the civilian judiciary.
Sign up for Essential California
The most important California stories and recommendations in your inbox every morning.
You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times.
