Ex-army politician in Peruvian murder case

LIMA - Prosecutors have asked for an ex-army officer who nearly won Peru's 2006 presidential race to be tried for murder.

Ollanta Humala, who lost to President Alan Garcia, was accused of forced disappearance, torture and murder while fighting leftist insurgents and drug-traffickers at a jungle army base in 1992, said a public prosecutors' office spokesman yesterday.

Prosecutors asked a judge for charges to be filed against Humala. It was not known when the judge would issue a decision.

Humala, 44, won support from poor Peruvians with his promises of a social revolution. But the rich and the middle-class feared he was too radical, and centrist Garcia won a second-round victory in June.

The charges relate to when Humala was a captain at a jungle military base in San Martin, then a front line in the fight against the Shining Path guerrilla group and drug traffickers.

Humala's lawyer said the ex-military man's popularity in the area was testament to his innocence. Official results show Humala won 81 percent of the votes in the Nuevo Progreso district within San Martin department.

- REUTERS