AP News, July 1st, 2007
A former Peruvian soldier convicted there in a 1985 massacre of suspected guerrillas was sentenced to six months in federal prison for lying to U.S. officials to obtain a visa.
Telmo Ricardo Hurtado was sentenced Friday. He pleaded guilty in May in a deal with prosecutors to one count of making a false statement to a federal agency and one count of fraud and misuse of a visa.
Hurtado was arrested in April in connection with his December 2002 U.S. visa application, in which he stated he had never been arrested or convicted of a crime.
In fact, Hurtado was convicted in 1993 in Peru on charges of abuse of authority and lying about his connection with the Accomarca massacre of 1985. According to court documents, he commanded a platoon of soldiers that killed nearly 70 villagers in August 1985 while looking for members of the Shining Path guerrilla movement.
Following the 1993 conviction, Hurtado was sentenced to six years in a Peruvian military prison and ordered to pay a fine.
A military court granted him amnesty in 1995, but that amnesty was voided in January 2002 and the original sentence was reinstated, the documents said. It is not clear if he ever served any time in the case.
Hurtado delivered a brief statement before receiving his sentence Friday. He said he wanted to apologize to the court, but he did not refer to the massacre allegations.
Immigration officials plan to place Hurtado, of Bellavista in the Callao province of Peru, in deportation proceedings when he finishes serving his sentence.
