Police on Tuesday arrested a retired army general for his alleged participation in a 1992 massacre that figures prominently in the upcoming trial of former president Alberto Fujimori.
Retired General Luis Perez Documet headed the Army Special Forces when a paramilitary hit squad kidnapped and executed nine students and a professor from the University of La Cantuta in July 1992. Prosecutors say Perez Document allowed the hit squad, known as the Colina Group, to enter the university, then said nothing when he learned of the massacre.
At first Perez Documet put up fierce resistance, but police eventually subdued him. "This is how those who fought for democracy are treated!" he told police, according radio RPP reporting on the incident.
Perez Documet is also one of scores of witnesses who will be called to testify in the Fujimori trial, authorities said. The 1992 murders were carried out as the Fujimori administration battled the violent guerrillas with the Maoist Shining Path and the Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement. Both groups were crushed during Fujimori's 1990-2000 presidency.
Fujimori is currently jailed and awaiting the start of his first trial, scheduled for November 26. The ex-president is accused of approving the Colina Group operations, which also include the killing of 15 civilians in the Barrios Altos neighbourhood of Lima in 1991.
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