Peru's Humala should face investigation for atrocities: HRW

Former Peruvian President Ollanta Humala should be investigated for human rights violations committed when he was an active military officer during the 1990s, Human Rights Watch said Friday. The New York-based rights group said in a report that new evidence has emerged that "credibly implicates" Humala in atrocities during Peru's armed conflict against the Shining Path guerrillas. It said evidence also implicates Humala "in the attempted coverup of incriminating evidence when he ran for president in 2006." Humala, who is currently in detention awaiting trial on corruption charges, was Peru's president from 2011-2016. The organization's 24-page report includes testimony from several soldiers that they tortured, killed and forcibly disappeared people during military operations against armed groups in the 1990s. "They said they did so under orders -- and sometimes in the presence of -- Humala, who was allegedly stationed at the Madre Mia military base in the Alto Huallaga region in 1992 under the pseudonym 'Captain Carlos,'" it said. "Faced with very strong evidence implicating a former president in atrocities and their subsequent coverup, the attorney general's office should actively pursue all new leads," said HRW Americas director Jose Miguel Vivanco.