LURID TALES IN PERUVIAN TESTIMONY

Torture, Drugs Used To Make Smuggler Forget His State Deals

LIMA Demetrio Chavez says torturers used drugs, electric shocks and even
drilled a hole in his head to make him forget about his drug-trafficking
partnership with Peru's chief of security.

His story, told to congressional investigators and TV cameras, is the
latest to fascinate Peruvians as they unravel the lurid goings-on during
the decade-long rule of former president Alberto Fujimori, which ended in
November.

Chavez's story keeps the spotlight where it has been for months: on
Vladimiro Montesinos, Fujimori's feared spymaster, who is believed to have
fled Peru in a boat in October as the regime collapsed.

Montesinos is accused of running a corruption and drug-running network that
infected the armed forces from generals down. Peru is one of the world's
major producers of the coca leaf used to make cocaine.

The most hair-raising details given by Chavez, a convicted drug kingpin, to
the congressional committee investigating Montesinos' alleged wrongdoing
involve a brutal 1994 interrogation.

"They grabbed me by the neck and I felt an electric charge until I passed
out. I woke up in a dark cell. My head hurt," he said. "A few days later I
washed it and I felt a lethal pain in the centre of my head. I touched it.
Material was leaking out and it smelled awful.

"Now I have a hole in my head," he told congress. He did not explain what
the hole was used for.

Chavez, 47, who is better known by the alias Vaticano, told more in a
series of prime-time TV interviews from his prison cell last week. He said
he paid Montesinos $50,000 US a month for allowing smugglers to use an
airstrip in Peru's jungle-shrouded Huallaga Valley to ship semi-refined
cocaine to Colombia. He said Montesinos bragged that he had worked with
slain Colombian cocaine lord Pablo Escobar - bolstering a similar
allegation by Escobar's jailed brother, Roberto.

Montesinos doubled the fee for the landing strip, but Chavez said he
refused to pay and fled to Colombia, believing Montesinos wanted him
killed. He was captured and extradited back to Peru.

Special state attorney Jose Ugaz says Chavez's testimony is credible and
asserted that many military officers are implicated, including retired army
Gen. Nicolas Hermoza, Peru's former armed forces commander. Hermoza denies
the allegations.

Fujimori's iron-fisted rule ended in November amid mounting corruption
scandals surrounding Montesinos, once his most trusted security adviser.

Fujimori has fled to Japan, his ancestral homeland. When Montesinos
disappeared, he left behind a collection of secretly taped videos
documenting his manipulation of legislators, judges, election officials and
business leaders with favours, political appointments and cash.