Cloud of fear hangs over Peru drug trial

But the accused has remained defiant, saying he has nothing to fear. ‘These people don’t have any proof against me. They just come talking nonsense,’ he said. Those involved in the trial are operating under a cloud of fear and intimidation. Sonia Medina, Peru’s State Attorney, says she has information that a price has been put on the heads of State witnesses, while the wife of one of the judges was recently grabbed by two men and ordered to tell her husband to back off the case or their children would suffer the consequences, reports The Scotsman. Some witnesses have been attacked in prison, although this has not stopped some powerful evidence against Zevallos from emerging in court. Zevallos is the most prominent and powerful figure among more than a dozen defendants who for the past nine months have faced retrial in connection with the 1995 seizure of 3.3 tons of cocaine in the northern Peruvian city of Piura that broke up the ‘Nortenos’ drug gang. Full report in The Scotsman