Peru legislators lobby Panama to deny Montesinos asylum

PANAMA CITY, Panama (Reuters) -- Two Peruvian opposition lawmakers were in Panama on Tuesday to urge the government to reject fugitive spy chief Vladimiro Montesinos' request for political asylum.

Anel Townsend and Mercedes Cabanillas, of the opposition parties We Are Peru and Popular American Revolutionary Alliance (APRA), respectively, were due to meet on Tuesday with the Panamanian legislature's foreign policy steering group and the country's human rights ombudsman.

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"We are going to try to persuade the Panamanian government that (Montesinos) is not a victim of political persecution, but that he is a protege of the Peruvian government," Cabanillas told Peruvian RPP radio on Tuesday.

Montesinos, who was President Alberto Fujimori's right-hand man for a decade before a corruption scandal threw the country into political crisis, slipped into Panama City's Tocumen International Airport in a private jet early Sunday as the Organization of American States (OAS), the United States and regional leaders pressured the Central American state to take him in.

They argued that it would help an OAS-sponsored drive to strengthen democracy in Peru after Fujimori won flawed elections in May.

Panama, which initially refused Montesinos' asylum request, agreed to reconsider on Monday. He can remain in Panama on a one-month tourist visa, which can be extended for another two months, pending a government decision.

In neighboring Costa Rica, meanwhile, the San Jose-based Central American Commission for the Defense of Human Rights (CODEHUCA) joined the call for Panama to reject Montesinos' bid for political asylum.

"Central America cannot continue to be a refuge for human rights violators," the commission, which monitors human rights in the region, said in a press release late on Monday.

The commission cited Panama's two-decade old international role as a place of exile for the people like the late Shah of Iran, former Haitian coup leaders and former presidents from Guatemala and Ecuador.

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