Peru sentences army officers for Accomarca massacre

                                   
It was one of the most notorious mass killings of Peru’s bitter internal conflict between Maoist guerrillas and the state in the 1980s and 1990s.
Now, 30 years on, a Peruvian court has handed down sentences to the army officers responsible for the Accomarca massacre.
The family members of the victims finally had their day in court. After a trial lasting nearly six years, judges sentenced 10 former army officers to jail terms of between 10 and 25 years.
Junior soldiers received shorter terms or were acquitted while the maximum term was given to the former general convicted of giving the order to kill.
Telmo Hurtado, the ex-officer who led the attack in August 1985, had been dubbed the ‘butcher of the Andes’ for the massacre in Accomarca. He was extradited from the U.S. in 2011.
Using machine guns and grenades and torching homes with the victims inside, the soldiers killed more than 60 villagers, and among them more than 20 were children.