Peru's ex-security chief has testified that former President Alberto Fujimori is innocent of human rights violations.

Vladimiro Montesinos, currently serving a jail term for arms smuggling, is alleged to have organised death squads in the 1990s during Mr Fujimori's rule.

However, he told the court Mr Fujimori was not guilty of ordering killings. Prosecutors claim Mr Fujimori ordered two massacres in which 25 people died.

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Montesinos, whose testimony has been keenly anticipated, told the court in Lima that he had chosen to testify even though he could remain silent under the law.

He said Mr Fujimori bore no responsibility for any of the offences with which he is charged.

Left-wing rebels

Montesinos, who is currently serving a 20-year sentence, was Mr Fujimori's intelligence chief during his 1990-2000 rule.

As such, he was privy to the government's policies and strategy in its war against left-wing rebels.

Mr Fujimori's trial relates to two massacres carried out by a death squad known as La Colina, in which a total of 25 people died.

In 1991, La Colina raided a barbecue in a poor suburb of Lima known as Barrios Altos and killed 15 people.

The following year, they kidnapped nine students and a professor.

They were taken away from the campus and summarily executed. Their remains were later found in an unmarked grave.

It is alleged the death squad was under the direct command of the Peruvian president.

Mr Fujimori is also charged with ordering the illegal detention and interrogation of a prominent journalist, Gustavo Gorriti, and businessman Samuel Dyer, in 1992.

(BBC)

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