A Peruvian ex-interior minister was complicit in the 1988 killing of Hugo Bustíos, a journalist who investigated human rights abuses, a court has found. The former minister, Daniel Urresti, has been sentenced to 12 years in jail. The court ruled that Urresti, who at the time was a military intelligence officer in the army, took part in the ambush and murder of Mr Bustíos. Lawyers for the politician said they would appeal against the verdict. Hugo Bustíos, a reporter for the weekly magazine Caretas, was killed at the height of the conflict between Peruvian security forces and rebels of the Maoist Shining Path group. The journalist reported on human rights abuses committed both by the rebels and the army in the Andean region of Ayacucho, one of the hardest hit by the armed conflict which left 69,000 people dead or disappeared. On the day of his killing, he was heading to investigate the killing of a villager and her son, reportedly by the Shining Path. He and a fellow journalist, Eduardo Rojas, were ambushed and shot at while they were making their way to the village by motorcycle. (BBC)…[+]