Lori Berenson Ordered Back to Peru to Complete 20 Year Sentence

by Amy Judd | August 18, 2010 at 03:15 pm

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Lori Berenson Ordered Back to Peruvian Prison

She has been free for two months, but now Lori Berenson, who has already spent almost 15 years in jail in Peru on terrorism charges, was ordered back to complete her 20 year sentence.

The judge in the case found that Berenson has not fully complied with her parole regulations. She was sentenced for taking part in the Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement (MRTA) that waged war on the government in the 80s and 90s according to TIME.

She will now be in Peruvian jail until November 2015.

She spoke with TIME Magazine, saying that politicians were just using her to gain political points before the 2011 election:

"I feel like a soccer ball being kicked around, with politicians saying this and that to hype up the case. I was in the news for nine straight weeks, on the front page so many times that I have to wonder about the purpose behind it. It is a hatred and it is not healthy. It is not healthy for me or the people behind it," she said. "The people orchestrating this know that I am no danger to society."

Lori Berenson was arrested in 1995 and was sentenced to life in prison 'as a terrorist leader' in 1996. She was retried in 2001 after her sentence was overturned, and was given a 20-year sentence. She married a fellow MRTA member Anibal Apari in prison in 2003 and had a child 15 months ago.

She now has to decide what to do with her son Salvador as she could bring him with her, but she is not sure she wants to expose her child further to prison life.

Berenson and Apari have signed permission forms that would allow her parents to return to the United States with the boy and that she said the best thing would be for him to leave but, she told TIME, "he is my son and I want to raise him, I want to be with him. He has been with me for more than two years in and out of the womb. We do everything together, so it is very hard thinking of him not being here."