Peru's Ex-Spymaster Sentenced to Prison

Former Peruvian spymaster Vladimiro Montesinos, is seen in court on a Navy Base in Callao, Peru on Thursday, Sept. 21, 2006, to receive the verdict on charges he masterminded a deal that parachute-dropped 10,000 assault rifles to leftist Colombian guerrillas. Prosecutors are seeking a 20-year sentence for Montesinos and a fine of US$3 million (2.5 million) to be split by the governments of Peru and Colombia. Montesinos, 61, is already serving a 15-year term on about a dozen corruption convictions, which under Peruvian law are served concurrently. (AP Photo/Martin Mejia) (Martin Mejia - AP)

But their version quickly unraveled under skepticism from Colombian and Jordanian officials.

Montesinos fled Peru but was captured in Venezuela in June 2001. He has since been locked up in the high-security naval prison in Lima's port of Callao, which he helped design for Peru's most notorious guerrilla leaders.

Fujimori, who was not charged in the arms trafficking case, also fled _ first to Tokyo, then to Chile, where he remains fighting extradition to his homeland.

Co-defendant Jose Luis Aybar said he helped arrange the deal at Montesinos' behest, but denied knowing the arms were destined for Colombia. He testified he was tortured by Montesinos' intelligence agents, who warned him to take the blame for the illegal arms deal or his family would suffer.

Aybar and his brother were sentenced Thursday to 15 years in jail.

In 1998, the Aybars contacted Miami-based businessman Charles Acelor, a French-born naturalized U.S. citizen, in search of assault rifles.

Acelor, who also received a 15-year sentence, put them in touch with international weapons broker Sarkis Soghanalian, a Turkish-born Lebanese citizen and U.S. resident _ whose long career supplying arms to ex-dictators like Nicaragua's Anastasio Somoza and Iraq's Saddam Hussein earned him the nickname "The Merchant of Death."

Soghanalian _ one of 15 defendants tried in absentia in the case _ has said he personally negotiated the deal with Montesinos, but insisted he believed it was a legal transaction. The court reserved dictating a verdict for him.

Portocarrero said Peru is trying to extradite Soghanalian from the United States.

The weapons were reportedly bought in three lots and delivered on four flights between March and August 1999 by an Ukraine-registered military surplus cargo jet.

The original plan allegedly had been to sell another 40,000 rifles to the rebels but Jordan canceled the deal when the CIA tipped it off in mid-1999 that the rifles were turning up in the hands of captured Colombian guerrillas.