Japanese Embassy Hostage Crisis - Executions Controversy

Executions Controversy

Doubts about the official version of events soon began to arise. Some aspects of what happened during the rescue operation remained secret until the fall of the Fujimori government. Rumors began to circulate not long after the rescue operation that surrendered MRTA members had been executed extrajudicially:

• One Japanese hostage, Hidetaka Ogura, former first secretary of the Japanese Embassy, who published a book in 2000 on the ordeal, stated that he saw one rebel, Eduardo Cruz ("Tito"), tied up in the garden shortly after the commandos stormed the building. Cruz was handed over alive to Colonel Jesús Zamudio Aliaga, but along with the others he was later reported as having died during the assault.
• Former agriculture minister Rodolfo Muñante, declared in an interview eight hours after being freed that he heard one rebel shout "I surrender" prior to taking off his grenade-laden vest and turning himself over. Later, however, Muñante denied having said this.
• Another hostage, Máximo Rivera, then head of Peru's anti-terrorism police, said recently he had heard similar accounts from other hostages after the raid.

Media reports also discussed a possible breach of international practices on taking of prisoners, committed on what was, under rules of diplomatic extraterritoriality, sovereign Japanese soil, and speculated that if charged, Fujimori could face prosecution in Japan.