Claims police tortured Peruvian protesters outside British-owned mine
A British mining corporation is being taken to court by a group of Peruvian farmers who claim the company did nothing to help injured protesters when they were allegedly attacked and tortured by security guards and police outside the mining complex.
Published: 7:00AM BST 19 Oct 2009
Monterrico, the mining company, wanted to create Peru's second largest mine at Rio Blanco in the country's northwest, but found itself in conflict with local farmers soon after it arrived in 2001.
The locals feared the region's rivers would become polluted as a result of the copper mining and that the fragile eco-systems would be severely damaged, the Guardian reports.
In August 2005 a large group of protesters travelled to the mine to voice their objections. They were greeted by police and claim that 28 demonstrators were detained, hooded, beaten with sticks and whipped.
Other protesters claim to have been attacked by the mine's security guards and by members of the Peruvian federal police.
During the encounter, two protesters were shot in the leg, one man was shot in the eye and a farmer called Melanio Garcia, 41, suffered a fatal gunshot, the paper said.
Photographs allegedly taken by a Monterrico supervisor, which the protesters say support their allegations of abuse by the police, show Mr Garcia lying on the ground, apparently alive but badly injured.
Several other pictures taken 30 hours later, according to their time and date stamps, clearly show Mr Garcia to be dead.
More:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/southamerica/peru/6369624/Claims-police-tortured-Peruvian-protesters-outside-British-owned-mine.html