LIMA, Peru (AP) – Peruvians still largely resent Lori Berenson for conspiring with the nation’s No. 2 leftist rebel group in the 1990s, and she and her prison-born son lived in a kind of limbo for five years after she was paroled.
On Thursday, the native New Yorker who came to Peru two decades ago bent on revolutionary change was heading home as a 46-year-old single mother who faced hostility to the end.
With son Salvador, 6, in her arms, Berenson sped through Lima’s airport terminal ringed by police. Recognizing her, people shouted “get out of here terrorist!” In a text message, Berenson called the incident “incredibly surreal although entirely typical.”
Formally expelled, Berenson was scheduled to depart for New York after midnight.
Although paroled in 2010, Berenson was not permitted to leave until her 20-year sentence for “collaboration with terrorism” for aiding the Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement lapsed.