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CNN Sunday Morning

Contentious Berenson Trial Enters Final Phase

Aired June 17, 2001 - 10:06   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
BRIAN NELSON, CNN ANCHOR: A court in Lima, Peru is expected to issue a verdict Wednesday in the case of American Lori Berenson. Peru had previously convicted her of treason and sentenced her to life without parole, but that was overturned back in August after pressure from the U.S., the pressure to grant her a new trial.

Prosecutors are now seeking a 20-year sentence for Berenson. Her father, Mark Berenson, is leaving for Lima tonight to be with his daughter in the final phase of that trial, and he joins us now from our New York bureau.

Mr. Berenson, it's a pleasure to be here. Thank you for being here with us.

MARK BERENSON, FATHER OF LORI BERENSON: Thanks for inviting me.

NELSON: First question: as you look forward to the sentencing this week in Lima, are you apprehensive, and how apprehensive are you?

BERENSON: I'm very apprehensive because the international community has criticized these special terrorism courts that Lori is in as failing to meet fairness and due process, even the minimal standards thereof. And we have seen a farce of a trial; for three months my wife and I have been sitting in the courtroom day after day seeing judges working hand-in-hand with the prosecutors, five against one.

This is an observation by Republican Congressman Joe Scarborough of Florida who joined us in April; he said why are the three judges wearing red, the two prosecutors wearing red, and your lawyer is wearing blue? They ignore our lawyer and the five of them work hand- in-hand together. There is no balance of scale, there, in the justice of Peru.

And the State Department has said that Peru is a country, in it's courts, special courts for terrorism, that's incapable of meeting fundamental principals of fairness and due process.

NELSON: Mr. Berenson, your daughter has been charged with terrorist collaboration, illicit association. Now, the facts of the case already established in the previous trial; she admitted to having rented an apartment in downtown Lima for members, guerrillas, of the Tupac Amaru group. BERENSON: No, that's not accurate. It's that -- she admitted helping rent a house in a suburb of Lima and then sublet it to a person who later was known to her as an MRTA leader. But neither she or her friend who sublet it knew it at the time.

And then Lori moved out of that house into an apartment in downtown Lima later on.

NELSON: Thank you for clearing that up. Do you get the sense, though, that the court is unresponsive to the nuances of what you've just described?

BERENSON: Yes. I think that the court is illegally using the evidence taken from witnesses that were coerced back in '95 in a secret military tribunal that Amnesty International has declared a travesty of justice. All of those people giving testimony then were coerced, threatened with torture or actually tortured, psychologically if not threatened physically, and each person today has said that they retract whatever was said then, including Lori, who said she would say something and the court would take it down in a different way.

"I didn't say that!" and they said, "Well, that's how we're writing it down."

That's the kind of thing that happened in the military tribunals. The lawyer had no chance to defend her there, and had minimal chance to defend her in the first few months of the investigatory process now. So, the use of that old military evidence is illegal. All the testimony given in this trial, since August, has said there is no evidence Lori was a member or collaborator with this group and there's been no documented evidence of that.

Peruvian law says that when there is insufficient information or evidence, the court must acquit. There's no jury system there. The judges must acquit. And whenever there's doubt, the judges must acquit. So, if this is really a justice system, Lori will be acquitted.

NELSON: Mr. Berenson, your daughter, though, up until now has, some say, harmed her own case by angry outbursts in court.

BERENSON: Oh, no. That's not true at all. This is why people might say that; we have the film, this has been a very open trial. You had a film on the monitor of Lori behind bars. Where's the assumption of innocence? The public immediately sees guilt. Look at that.

Is she screaming or having an outburst there? She's very calmly speaking into the microphone, and that's how she's conducted herself, with dignity and grace and poise and speaking very calmly for 25 and a half hours behind the microphone, as you see her in that picture. She has never had an outburst.

NELSON: Very quickly, summarize what she'll tell the court when she gets a chance to make a statement before the verdict. BERENSON: I believe she'll tell them that she's innocent. That she's sorry that there's been such violence and repressive governments and terrorism that's existed in Peru these past 20 years, but that she's absolutely innocent of the charges and hopes that one day there will really be a democracy and justice in Peru. It doesn't exist today.

There is hope for the future. They've just had great, fair, free elections and there's hope that the new government will turn things around and get rid of the repressive dictatorship that used to exist in that country.

NELSON: Mr. Berenson, we wish you the best of luck. Thank you for being with us this morning.

BERENSON: Thank you.

NELSON: You're leaving for Lima tonight...

BERENSON: Yes.

NELSON: ... to visit your daughter Lori before the trial.

BERENSON: Yes. And Happy Father's Day to all watching this program.

NELSON: Thank you very much.

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