More than 10 years have passed, and there is still no sentence. The process of the Perseo case, in which 40 leaders and members of Movadef are prosecuted – among them the leadership of Sendero Luminoso, such as Elena Iparraguirre and Osmán Morote – is a clear example of the delay in justice that exists in the country.
The hearings for this process have resumed but are advancing at a slow pace. The former heads of the Directorate Against Terrorism (Dircote), Colonel Max Anhuamán and retired PNP General José Baella, urged the Judiciary not to let any more time pass and to issue a sentence once and for all in this emblematic case.
“The Dircote has demonstrated with reliable evidence and documents that (the Movadef members) are from Sendero Luminoso. They aim to normalize Gonzalo thinking (by Abimael Guzmán). If they are not sentenced, it would be giving them a certificate of good conduct,” Anhuamán said.
LOOK: José Baella on the judge in the Perseo case: “Milko Ruíz makes it clear”
According to General Baella, “it is important” that Movadef be classified, in the sentence, as a terrorist group, so that later they do not say that they are being terrorized.
Anhuamán also recalled that Sendero Luminoso has not only created Movadef as a political arm, but also has links with other front organizations that currently operate, such as the CNUL and Conulp, which have participated in the latest protests, as has been the case. informed Peru21.
Regarding the delay of the process in the Perseo case, Colonel Anhuamán indicated: “That is the great problem of Peruvian justice. Trials take forever. Justice that takes time is not justice. And the same thing happens with the Olympus case (which is the continuity of the Perseus case).”
Max Anhuamán: They are looking for Abimael’s successor
For Anhuamán, Movadef continues working, despite the trial, on its main objective: the reconstruction of Sendero Luminoso.
They want to carry out this plan with the holding of the second congress, in which the new formation of the central committee will be elected that will replace the current one, which was headed by the genocidal Abimael Guzmán until before his death.
“They are putting together the second reconstitution to go to congress and designate their next leaders. Meanwhile (after Guzmán’s death), Elena Iparraguirre is the leader of the terrorist organization. This has been proven with the case of the NGO Voluntad Transformadora of Trujillo, in which ‘JJ’ (Juan Santos Romero) asked to give speeches to those innocent children and the people who went there, to comrade Miriam (Iparraguirre)”, explained the former head of Dircote.
When asked if, if the second Senderista congress were to take place, clandestinely, Iparraguirre would be chosen as its leader, he said: “Not necessarily, it could be anyone.”
He even did not rule out that, to evade police capture, the new Shining Path congress could be held semi-in-person from another country. “Nowadays the Internet gives you many facilities,” he noted.
OLD KNOWNS
Among the 40 defendants in the Perseo case, in addition to the historic Shining Path leadership, such as Iparraguirre and Morote, are the lawyers Afredo Crespo and Hugo Noronha, who also serve as defenders of the defendants.
However, Noronha is an old acquaintance of Dircote agents. In 1992, together with the current leader of Movadef, in Bolivia, Alex Chamán, he was arrested for attacking a patrol car with bullets and grenades in the district of Surquillo.
José Baella: “Movadef is Shining Path”
Former head of Dircote explains what the terrorist political arm is
The former head of the Dircote, retired general José Baella, told Peru21 that the Perseus case trial is important because it is being postulated that “Movadef is the Shining Path itself” and that “it is a terrorist group.”
“Why (is it a terrorist group)? One, because they follow the ideology; two, they obey orders from a directive from prison (Senderista dome); and three, when it came to registering (as a political party), it postulated Marxism, Leninism and Gonzalo thought as its ideology,” Baella explained.
According to the former head of Dircote, for Movadef it is important that the second Sendero congress be held in order to define who will be Abimael Guzmán’s successor.
“It is important that the trial be accelerated because then we will know what Movadef is. Simply, it is a change of shirt for Sendero Luminoso, which has changed shirts, so to speak. So that? To penetrate society to confront democracy,” he indicated.
On the other hand, Baella said that a new Senderista mausoleum should not be allowed to be created in a cemetery in Peru after the death of Abimael Guzmán, whose remains were cremated and scattered in 2021.
This is because in 2018 a mausoleum that Sendero had built in the Comas cemetery was demolished, in which a niche had been designated for Guzmán in order to worship him.