Peru Seeks Insurgent Killers
A court announced that it will call Peruvian Vice President, Luis Giampietri, to testify in a trial over the execution of an unknown number of insurgent prisoners.

The III Anti-Corruption Commission complied with the request of one of the accused, former colonel Roberto Huaman, who alleges that the testimony of Giampietri is necessary to explain what happened after the military occupation of the Japanese ambassador's home in Lima, in April of 1997.

A Japanese diplomat and two police officers explained that three insurgents, who had been holding more than 70 hostages since December of 1996, were taken prisoner alive although the government later reported that 14 insurgents died in the action.

The principal defendants in the trial are former presidential advisor to ex president Alberto Fujimori, Vladimiro Montesinos and former head of the Armed Forces, General Nicolas Hermoza, both of whom are serving jail sentences for other crimes.

Giampietri was one of the hostages and supplied the intelligence forces information on the situation in the residence, through communication equipment secretly implanted in the residence.

The vice president refuses to appear after repeated calls to testify in another trial against a paramilitary group that executed insurgents during the Fujimori government.

The III Anti-Corruption Commission also prepares to call members of the armed forces that occupied the diplomatic residence, an action that was accepted this week by the Army head.

According to accusations of the Attorney General and news reports, this elite troop took the residence and later elements at the service of Montesinos entered to kill the surviving insurgents.