Fujimori's deputy quits in row over amnesty

Peru's Vice-President, Francisco Tudela, quit yesterday as a row mounted over government plans to tie promised elections to an amnesty for rights abuses, and the shock return of the former spy chief Vladimiro Montesinos.

Peru's Vice-President, Francisco Tudela, quit yesterday as a row mounted over government plans to tie promised elections to an amnesty for rights abuses, and the shock return of the former spy chief Vladimiro Montesinos.

The departure of Mr Tudela, who deputised for President Alberto Fujimori and had been tipped to be the government's candidate in the new polls, was the highest-profile defection from the President's camp and the clearest sign yet of his crumbling support.

Cornered by a corruption scandal involving Mr Montesinos, Mr Fujimori announced last month that he would step down in July after elections four years early.

He summoned his ministers to an emergency cabinet meeting after Mr Tudela's resignation, Mr Montesinos's sudden reappearance and the row over the amnesty plan, which would shield military and government officials from charges that they violated human rights in Peru's fight against drug lords and rebels.

Opposition leaders said those conditions ensured that the amnesty law was tailor-made for Mr Montesinos, who ran the notorious intelligence service for Mr Fujimori amid allegations that he ordered torture and authorised death squads.

The political turmoil, which opposition leaders say puts the elections at risk, punished financial markets, hitting Peru's Brady bonds in New York and its sol currency.

Mr Montesinos, who sparked Peru's worst political crisis in a decade when he was seen in a video apparently bribing an opposition congressman to switch sides, arrived back in Peru early yesterday after Panama refused him asylum. ( Reuters)