Former Peruvian soldiers get prison in rapes of teenagers during country's armed conflict

Ten men have been convicted in Peru for raping nine teenagers while serving in the military during the country’s armed conflict decades ago. Judge Marco Angulo, of Peru’s First Superior Criminal Court, on Wednesday ordered the former soldiers to serve time in prison, with sentences ranging between six and 12 years. Authorities accused them of raping the teenagers in the Andean community of Manta. The war that raged between the Peruvian military and the Shining Path communist insurgency from 1980 to 2000 left an estimated 70,000 people dead. Prosecutors began looking into the teenagers’ accusations in 2004 after a special commission investigating the armed conflict determined sexual violence was persistent in Manta.