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New York’s most notorious revolutionary tourist — “sandalista” Lori Berenson — is back in Manhattan from Peru, where she served 15 years in prison for terrorism. Forgive us if we don’t put out a welcome mat. The LaGuardia HS grad and MIT dropout has been stuck in Peru by law until her full 20-year sentence expired. Now that it has, she’s heading home to her parents’ Kips Bay apartment. Though lionized by the left and worshiped by The New York Times, Berenson, now 46, was no naive idealist. She spent years traveling Central America with Marxist groups until she hooked...

LIMA (Reuters) - Lori Berenson, a New Yorker once jailed in Peru for helping Marxist insurgents, is returning to the United States with her six-year-old son after finishing a 20-year sentence, her lawyer said Tuesday. Berenson, 46, was making preparations to leave Peru "in coming hours," said Anibal Apari, her attorney and the father of her son. He declined to be more specific. Apari and Berenson met in prison in 1997. He was also an inmate at the time. Berenson was on parole for the past 5 years after spending 15 years in prison. In 1996, Berenson was found guilty...

LIMA, Peru (AP) -- Peru's government abused its authority by barring paroled U.S. activist Lori Berenson and her 31-month-old son from leaving the country to spend the holidays in New York City with her family, her lawyer charged Saturday. "Administratively, you can't block a court order," Anibal Apari said after Berenson told The Associated Press that she and her son Salvador were prevented from boarding a flight Friday night despite being granted permission in court.

President Bush had many important foreign policy issues to discuss when he went to Lima, Peru, last weekend, but you wouldn't have known it from watching NBC's weekend "Today" show on Sunday. Because while Bush was talking about narcotics trafficking, trade and international terrorism with Peruvian President Alejandro Toledo, "Today" and other Sunday news shows led with the case of convicted American terrorist Lori Berenson. American media coverage of President Bush's trip to Mexico, Peru and Central America revealed how our media establishment views Latin America. Basically, our journalistic agenda-setters in New York and Washington ignore our neighbors to the...

The imprisoned leader of a Peruvian rebel group that was once involved in a lengthy hostage drama says his group has given up armed conflict and now wants to become a political movement. In an interview published in Wednesday's Peru21 newspaper, Victor Polay acknowledged that the Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement has been defeated. "The moment has arrived for the MRTA to actively join the political fight, within the framework of democracy," said Polay, using the group's initials in Spanish. He said he would like authorities to grant amnesty to imprisoned MRTA guerrillas. "I hope there will be a political way...

Mary Anastasia O'Grady writes in today's Wall Street Journal that George Soros's Open Society Institute has been funding terrorism. In a column entitled Friends of Terror in Peru, O'Grady notes that Thursday's vote by the European Parliament to take the Peruvian guerrilla group known as the Tupac Amaru (aka MRTA) off its terrorist list has Peru in an uproar. For good reason: The MRTA is notorious for kidnapping, torturing and murdering civilians to advance its political agenda. More recently, Peruvian officials have linked it to Hugo Chávez's "Bolivarian Movement," which seeks to destabilize democracies in Latin America, and to the...

LIMA (Reuters) - Lori Berenson, a New Yorker who spent 15 years in Peruvian prisons for aiding Marxist insurgents, will visit the United States as early as this weekend for the first time since her 1995 arrest, officials and her family said on Friday. Berenson, 42, the mother of a 2-year-old boy, was paroled last year after serving most of a 20-year sentence. At the time of her release, Peru's government resisted calls to commute the rest of her sentence so she could return permanently to the United States. Peruvian officials say she must return to Lima by January 11....

A Peruvian judge’s decision to parole Lori Berenson, an American imprisoned in Peru since November 1995 on terrorism charges, has provoked an avalanche of negative reactions here. Judge Jessica León accepted on Tuesday Ms. Berenson’s request to be released after having served three-quarters of her 20-year sentence. Berenson, however, must remain in Peru through the end of her sentence, in 2015, and report to judicial authorities every 30 days. A list of other conditions also restricts where she can live and the people with whom she can associate. The conditions were not enough for most of Peru’s media, which published...

Lima, Peru -- Lori Berenson, a U.S. citizen jailed in Peru since 1995 for helping leftist rebels, has been granted conditional release, a judge announced Tuesday. Berenson has served nearly 15 years of a 20-year sentence for aiding Peruvian rebels in a 1995 plot to overthrow Peru's congress. Judge Jessica Leon Yarango made the announcement in a televised court hearing after Berenson's lawyer made the request, but did not specify when she would be released. Berenson, 40, who last year gave birth in prison to a son, Salvador, has long maintained her innocence. Her original sentence of life in prison...

SAN JOSE, Costa Rica (AP) - The Inter-American Court of Human Rights Tuesday refused a request by American Lori Berenson to review its ruling that upheld her 20-year sentence in Peru for terrorism. In a decision issued in November, the Costa Rica-based court - the legal arm of the Organization of American States - rejected Berenson's arguments that Peru violated her rights in a 2001 civilian retrial. It was Berenson's last formal avenue of appeal. The former New York City resident has denied any wrongdoing and maintains she is a political prisoner whose concern for social justice was distorted by...

Lori Berenson's parents raged last night against a human rights court ruling that will keep their activist daughter in prison for the next 11 years. Mark and Rhoda Berenson, who live in Gramercy Park, said the ruling marked "a tragic day for human rights in the Western Hemisphere and in the world." They faulted the Costa Rica-based Inter-American Human Rights Court's decision to uphold a Peruvian court ruling that declared their activist daughter a Marxist terrorist who conspired in 1995 to overturn the Peruvian government. Berenson was originally tried by a tribunal of hooded judges. It was later found she...

For months, Lori Berenson, New York's most notorious revolutionary tourist, has had her fingers crossed, counting on the Inter-American Court of Human Rights to overturn her 20-year sentence for terrorist activities in Peru. The Lima government also clearly expected a ruling in Berenson's favor — it announced last week that it would defy any order by the Costa Rica-based court that the MIT dropout-turned-sandalista be set free. But guess what? The court has upheld her sentence, imposed after a three-month civilian trial after her first conviction, by a military tribunal, was overturned following pressure from the Clinton administration. The...

LIMA, Peru (AP) - The Inter-American Court of Human Rights has upheld the conviction and 20-year sentence of Lori Berenson, a New York native imprisoned in Peru for terrorist collaboration with Marxist guerrillas, President Alejandro Toledo said Thursday. Toledo told Radioprogramas radio the Costa Rica-based court had "ratified the sentence and I once again salute the court members. It is undoubtedly a great satisfaction and tranquility for Peruvian justice and all Peruvians." His comments were a response to unconfirmed news reports about the ruling, which the court has yet to officially announce. The human rights court, the legal arm of...

LIMA, Peru - Peru will not abide by an international human rights court ruling supporting the release of Lori Berenson (news - web sites), a New York woman imprisoned for collaborating with Marxist guerrillas, the country's foreign minister said, according to news reports Saturday. The Inter-American Human Rights Court, the Costa Rica-based legal arm of the Organization of American States, is scheduled to deliberate Berenson's case Nov. 24-25 to decide whether she received a fair civilian retrial in 2001. Peru is an OAS member. "If this error were made, the Peruvian state, with legal justification, would take the position of...

LIMA, Peru (AP) - Peru will not abide by an international human rights court ruling supporting the release of Lori Berenson, a New York woman imprisoned for collaborating with Marxist guerrillas, the country's foreign minister said, according to news reports Saturday. The Inter-American Human Rights Court, the Costa Rica-based legal arm of the Organization of American States, is scheduled to deliberate Berenson's case Nov. 24-25 to decide whether she received a fair civilian retrial in 2001. Peru is an OAS member. "If this error were made, the Peruvian state, with legal justification, would take the position of not liberating any...

Father's plea: Help me free Lori Friday, May 7, 2004 By NICOLA M. WHITE HERALD NEWS For eight years, Lori Berenson has been behind bars in a Peruvian prison, convicted of collaborating with leftist terrorists to overthrow the Peruvian government.For eight years, her father, a professor at Montclair State University, has insisted she's innocent.Early Thursday, Mark Berenson and his wife, Rhoda, left their Manhattan home for Costa Rica, where they hope the Inter-American Court of Human Rights will force the Peruvian government to free their daughter.From the late 1980s to the 1990s, leftist terrorist groups, the most prominent being the...

The National Lawyers Guild: Keeping Marxism Alive and Well in America By Jesse RigsbyFrontPageMagazine.com | April 25, 2003 The National Lawyers Guild (NLG, also "the Guild") embraces every anti-America, anti-capitalist, anti-war, anti-Israel, and "anti-imperialist" cause in vogue among the far left and declares itself "dedicated to the need for basic change in the structure of our political and economic system." If this strikes the reader as a slight hint that the Guild’s underlying ideology is not exactly laissez-faire capitalism, that is because it is not. While the Guild is not officially communist or Marxist, its membership, leadership, past internal struggles,...

September 29By Gerry DalyPublished September 26, 2001In any social movement there is a vanguard and a mass. On one side, the vanguard, are groups of people who are more resolute and committed, better organized and able to take a leading role in the struggle, and on the other side, the mass, are larger numbers of people who participate in the struggle or are involved simply by their social position, but are less committed or well-placed in relation to the struggle, and will participate only in the decisive moments, which in fact change history. The Marxist theory of the vanguard, in ...

Lord, Keep our Troops forever in Your care Give them victory over the enemy... Grant them a safe and swift return... Bless those who mourn the lost. . FReepers from the Foxhole join in prayer for all those serving their country at this time. ...................................................................................... ........................................... U.S. Military History, Current Events and Veterans Issues Where Duty, Honor and Countryare acknowledged, affirmed and commemorated. Our Mission: The FReeper Foxhole is dedicated to Veterans of our Nation's military forces and to others who are affected in their relationships with Veterans. In the FReeper Foxhole, Veterans or their family members should feel...

PICHARI, Peru - Shining Path guerrillas ambushed a 30-man marine patrol in a section of steep, mountainous jungle, killing seven and wounding 10 in the Peruvian military's worst loss to rebels in at least four years, military sources said Friday. A marine captain, four other marines and two civilian guides were killed in the attack Thursday afternoon in the Ayacucho region when rebels opened fire after they stopped to take a break in a clearing, said an army officer who spoke on condition of anonymity. The attack was another strong sign of a resurgence in Shining Path activity. Last month,...