Former members of Peru military brass sentenced for massacres

Lima, Agency
Peru's former spy chief and 21 erstwhile military men were sentenced Friday to prison terms of 15 to 25 years for politically motivated killings in the early 1990s.

Besides Vladimiro Montesinos, the top adviser to disgraced former President Alberto Fujimori, the group includes retired Gens. Nicolas Hermosa Rios, Juan Rivero Lazo and Julio Salazar Monroe.

Hermosa was once commander-in-chief of the Peruvian army.

The defendants were found guilty of aggravated homicide in the 1991 massacre of 15 people in the Lima neighborhood of Barrios Altos and the killings in 1992 of nine peasants in the northern town of El Santa and journalist Pedro Yauri.

Montesinos is already serving long sentences for corruption and human rights abuses during Fujimori's 1990-2000 tenure, while the former president himself is also behind bars.