Thread: Accused South American Torture Suspect Arrested

Now these people should have been caught a lot sooner. It is frightening to know they have been here so long.

http://www.miamiherald.com/460/story/60579.html

IMMIGRATION
Accused torture suspect arrested in Miami Beach
A former Peruvian military officer accused of leading a massacre has been arrested by immigration agents in South Florida.
BY ALFONSO CHARDY
achardy@MiamiHerald.com
On the morning of Aug. 14, 1985, a military patrol entered a village in the Peruvian Andes searching for fighters of the Maoist rebel group Shining Path.

Witnesses said soldiers under the command of 2nd Lt. Telmo Hurtado gathered 69 villagers, separated the women, raped them and then proceeded to kill everyone, including some children, with machine guns and hand grenades. Hurtado was eventually charged and convicted in his homeland in connection with the massacre but evaded punishment and fled to the United States.

Justice caught up with him last week.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents on Friday arrested Hurtado in Miami Beach. Officials said Miami U.S. Attorney R. Alexander Acosta authorized Hurtado's criminal prosecution on charges related to visa fraud.

ANOTHER ARREST

Juan Rivera, another former Peruvian officer who also allegedly participated in the 1985 massacre, was arrested in Baltimore early last week on immigration law violations.

In a separate case, immigration agents on Sunday arrested former Argentine army Maj. Ernesto Guillermo Barreiro in the Washington, D.C., area and held him for possible visa fraud prosecution, immigration officials said.

Barreiro, linked to Argentina's ''dirty war'' in the 1970s, led a brief rebellion in 1987 demanding amnesty for those implicated in atrocities.

TORTURE SUSPECTS

The arrests are the latest under a 7-year-old program by immigration authorities to detain and deport -- and sometimes prosecute -- torture suspects from abroad who are found in the United States.

In December, Charles ''Chuckie'' Taylor -- son of ousted Liberian dictator Charles Taylor -- was charged in the first use of a 12-year-old federal anti-torture statute.

In 2002, a federal jury in Miami found Cuban exile defendant Eriberto Mederos guilty of lying in his citizenship application by concealing his participation in the torture of political dissidents in a psychiatric hospital. Mederos died on the eve of his sentencing.

Dozens of other torture suspects have been arrested across the nation since officials of the now-defunct U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service launched the so-called persecutor program in 2000.

The program was inherited by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and most of the recent major cases have been developed under the guidance of the agency's human rights violators unit in Washington.

Most of the suspects have been charged with immigration law violations. Hurtado was charged with lying on his visa application.

''The federal government is committed to identifying and arresting human rights violators who are using the United States as a safe haven,'' said Barbara Gonzalez, a Miami spokeswoman for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Though Rivera outranked Hurtado at the time of the massacre in Peru's Accomarca region, Hurtado has been portrayed as lead officer in the episode.

He retired as major, but in 1985 he was an infantry second lieutenant.

Victor Williams, a special agent with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Miami, said in an affidavit filed in federal court that Hurtado concealed his conviction on his visa application filed Dec. 2, 2002.

Hurtado, 45, arrived in 2002 after obtaining a visitor visa. Then he overstayed.

Frank Parodi, a former national program manager with Immigration and Customs Enforcement's human rights violators unit in Washington, voiced concerns about Hurtado's ability to obtain a visa.

CHANGES URGED

''Something has to be done to prevent these human rights violators from fleeing and retiring in South Florida,'' said Parodi, who frequently has encountered foreign-born torture suspects living in Florida with expired visas.

Public records show a Telmo Hurtado with an address on Harding Avenue in Miami Beach.

But apartment numbers in the motel style-complex did not match public records, and neighbors said they did not know Hurtado.

Hurtado was absolved of some charges in 1993 by a Peruvian military council, which convicted him of abuse of authority and giving false statements, according to Williams' affidavit.

Hurtado was sentenced to six years in prison, but did not serve time.

In 1995, the supreme court of military justice granted him amnesty, the affidavit said. However, the matter was returned to a military court, and some charges were reinstated.

Peru's supreme court requested his extradition in 2005, the affidavit said.

six months building the fence and then off to jail.

Just goes to show you that our government has no idea who is in this country illegally. Terrorists, Murderers, Rapists etc. go undetected in this country.

I agree that the government doesn't know who is here. They often use aliases and when caught unless they have been arrested before you don't even know their real identity. That is scary.