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Unfruitful Search for Montesinos in Venezuela
The search for Peruvian fugitive ex-spy chief Vladimiro Montesinos in Venezuela was unfruitful, Venezuelan Foreign Minister Jose Vicente Rangel said Tuesday, December 26.
Rangel told the press that authorities had questioned a Peruvian oil engineer and "it turned out this man has nothing to do with Montesinos".
"We've looked everywhere, airports, land entries to national territory, and we've detected absolutely nothing", he added.
He said that Venezuela had as much interest as Peru in finding Montesinos.
"If Montesinos is in Venezuela, he'd quickly be detained and deported to Peru, we do not protect or shelter people who've participated in violations of human rights or are involved in drug trafficking matters", he affirmed.
The Venezuelan press reported that Montesinos was in Caracas and had a facial surgery.
Montesinos, the powerful right-hand man of ex-president Alberto Fujimori, was declared fugitive by his country's justice, which accused him of illegal enrichment, human right abuses, money laundering from drug trafficking and corruption.
A scandal erupted in Peru in September after a videotape was released showing Montesinos bribing an opposition lawmaker to switch party affiliations in the presidential election. Then it escalated into a political crisis and resulted in the sack of disgraced Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori by the Congress in November.
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