Vladimiro Montesinos

Vladimiro Lenin Ilich Montesinos Torres (born 20 May 1945) is a Peruvian former intelligence officer who was the long-standing head of Peru's National Intelligence Service (SIN) and was reportedly the de facto leader of Peru while President Alberto Fujimori served as a figurehead leader.

Subsequent investigations revealed Montesinos to be at the centre of a vast web of illegal activities, including embezzlement, graft, gunrunning, drug trafficking, and extrajudicial killings.

He has been tried, convicted and sentenced for numerous charges.

Even after losing power and the resignation of Alberto Fujimori, and being himself imprisoned, Montesinos still tried to influence Peruvian politics and attempted to protect several Fujimorist politicians, including Keiko Fujimori.

Vladimiro Montesinos was born in the city of Arequipa, the capital of the Arequipa Region in southern Peru.

His parents were devout communists of Greek origin and named their son after Vladimir Lenin.

Montesinos is a cousin of the incarcerated terrorist leader Óscar Ramírez Durand, a.k.a. "Feliciano", the leader of the Shining Path.

In 1965, Montesinos graduated as a military cadet at the U.S. Army's School of the Americas in Panama.

A year later, he graduated from the Chorrillos Military School, in Lima, Peru.

In the 1970s, Peru was governed by the only left-wing regime in South America, a continent dominated by right-wing governments.

Locked in the Cold War with the Soviet Union and fearing its influence in the region, as well as that of the Communist government of Cuba, the US was seeking information about activities in Peru.

Montesinos conjured up and told a story about potential attacks against Peru's southern rival, Chile, then ruled by dictator Augusto Pinochet, an ally of the U.S.

In 1973, during the Revolutionary Government of the Armed Forces of Peru's leftist military junta of General Juan Velasco Alvarado, Montesinos became an artillery captain in the Peruvian army and was appointed to the role of aide to General Edgardo Mercado Jarrín, who served as both Prime Minister and Chief of the Armed Forces.

While working with Jarrín, Montesinos travelled with the prime minister to Algeria, Colombia, Cuba, France, Spain and Venezuela.

While visiting Cuba, he stayed with Raúl Castro as a personal guest.

The Armed Forces Movement of Portugal had also reportedly been in contact with Montesinos.

He visited several foreign institutions as an official representative of the Peruvian army, also without authorization.

In 1974, political scientist Alfred Stepan of Yale University recommended to the Embassy of the United States, Lima that Montesinos be given the International Visitor's Leader Grant, describing him as the "most theoretically sophisticated of young military officers in national security doctrine" and that he had "considerable leadership potential".

Montesinos expressed during the nomination process that he wanted to meet with officials of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the United States National Security Council of President Gerald Ford to discuss military and economic relations.

He also specified to US officials that he did not want to "waste time" going to tourist destinations such as Walt Disney World.

The United States Department of State and the CIA then began its relationship with Montesinos.

When the Velasco government fell in 1975, Montesinos was able to maintain his position in the military during the more conservative government of General Francisco Morales-Bermúdez.

He would also serve as an aide for prime ministers Guillermo Arbulú Galliani and Jorge Fernández Maldonado Solari during the government of Francisco Morales Bermúdez.

A talented writer, Montesinos wrote many of the speeches for ministers of the government and was a frequent contributor to newspapers.

He was also reportedly writing various treatises regarding an invasion of Chile and granting Bolivia access to the Pacific Ocean.

From 5 to 21 September 1976, Montesinos travelled to Washington, D.C. paid for by the United States government, meeting with multiple US officials; Robert Hawkins of the CIA's Office of Current Intelligence, Luigi R. Einaudi, policy-planning chief of the US State Department's Latin America division, Alfred Stepan of Yale University, Albert Fishlow of University of California, Berkeley, Riordan Roett of Johns Hopkins University and Abraham Lowenthal of the University of Southern California were documented to have met with Montesinos.

Such trips for foreign individuals provided by the United States were rare at the time and were only reserved for high-value recruits destined to carry out US interests.

Upon his return to Lima, he was arrested for having failed to obtain formal government permission to make the trip.

In 1977, Major José Fernández Salvatteci of the Army Intelligence Service (Servicio de Inteligencia del Ejército (SIE)) charged Montesinos with the crimes of spying and treason, accusing him of delivering military documents to the embassy of the United States in Lima.

The documents included a list of weapons which Peru had purchased from the Soviet Union.

The subsequent investigation revealed that top-secret documents had been found in his possession, and that he had photographed them and given copies to the CIA.

Montesinos had travelled to the U.S. without authorization from army command, and had forged military documents to allow him to complete the trip without being detained.

Montesinos was dishonorably discharged from the military and sentenced two years in the military prison at Bolivar Barracks in Pueblo Libre.

This was a far less severe sentence than the customary death penalty that was the punishment for traitors during the military regime.

United States Ambassador to Peru Robert William Dean contacted Minister of Foreign Affairs of Peru José de la Puente Radbill to pressure for Montesinos' release while the attorney representing the imprisoned army captain was asked to contact Einaudi.

General Mercado then ordered the charges be dropped.

Years later, declassified US State Department documents revealed the reason for the CIA's interest in Montesinos.

In February 1978, Montesinos was freed after two years in jail.

He was given work by his cousin Sergio Cardenal Montesinos, a lawyer who persuaded him to pursue a degree in law.

In April of the same year, Montesinos applied to the National University of San Marcos in Lima.