Peruvian Ex-Presidential Candidate and Minister jailed for 1988 murder of journalist

Colombo (News 1st) - A powerful former Minister and two-time presidential candidate in Peru has been sentenced to 12 years in jail for his role in the brutal murder of an investigative journalist 34 years ago, South American media reported.
Ex-Interior Minister Daniel Urresti, 66, had been a military intelligence officer who was one of a death squad of six military officers who carried out the slaying of Hugo Bustios of the publication Caretas in 1988, a court found.
Bustios was reporting on the conflict between the military and Shining Path rebels, a conflict which left 69,000 people dead.
Bustios and another journalist, Eduardo Rojas, had been on a motorcycle when they were ambushed. Rojas was wounded but managed to escape on the bike. But Bustios was badly hurt and fell off the motorcycle. The military men had then placed explosives on him and blown him up.
The commander of the nearby military base was convicted of the murder in 2007, and in turn implicated Urresti. He was found not guilty in a 2018 trial, but that verdict ws overturned by Peru's Supreme Court which ordered a new trial. His lawyers have said they would be appealing the new verdict.
Urresti entered politics after leaving the army and was Minister of the Interior from 2014-15.