Life Sentence for 'Artemio', the Last Shining Path Leader to Be Captured
Last Wednesday, June 5, in his statement before a tribunal scheduled the reading of the sentence, the last member of the Central Committee of the terrorist group Sendero Luminoso, Florindo Flores Hala, alias Camarada Artemio, said he preferred the death penalty over life imprisonment, "which is a slow death." However, after seven hours of hearing, the Criminal Chamber sentenced him to life imprisonment: there is no capital punishment in the country. The leader who commanded Sendero's committee in the Huallaga valley in central Peru's jungle for 30 years was found guilty of the crimes of aggravated terrorism, drug trafficking, and money laundering.