The Los Cabitos Trial

Retired general Carlos Briceño Zevallos does not remember anything that happened in 1983. At least that is the argument of his defense attorney, César Nakasaki, to support his claim that his client should be removed from the trial he currently faces. The retired general is being tried, along with six other senior military commanders, for the forced disappearance and torture of 54 people, crimes that occurred at the Los Cabitos military barracks in 1983. Los Cabitos was one of the cases that the Comisión de la Verdad y Reconciliación (CVR) recommended be brought to trial, and Briceño is one of the seven senior military commanders charged by Peruvian justice. According to the CVR, Cuartel Los Cabitos was the main center of detention, torture, disappearance, and extrajudicial execution by the security forces, especially during 1983, 1984, and 1985. Twenty-eight years after the events, and more than five years after the start of the prosecutorial investigation, the oral trial began on May 26.