Leader of Failed 2005 Peruvian Uprising Released from Prison

08/23/2022

A former Peruvian military officer who led a failed 2005 uprising has been released from prison, following a surprise announcement that his 19-year sentence had been reduced. 

A lawyer for Antauro Humala, the leader of Peru’s Ethnocacerist nationalist movement, which seeks to put the country’s disenfranchised Indigenous peoples in power, quickly hinted at a return to politics upon the release on Saturday. 

Speaking to supporters who chanted “President Antauro,”, he praised the 2005 uprising, in which he and his supporters attacked a police station in the Andean city of Andahuaylas in an attempt to force the resignation of then-President Alejandro Toledo. 

Six people, including four police officers, were killed in a days-long standoff at the station. 

Read more here.