Peruvian lawmakers are investigating accounts that paramilitary death squads may have secretly cremated their victims during the hard-line rule of former president Alberto Fujimori.

Officials from a congressional commission conducting the probe say at least one former army intelligence agent has testified that a secret furnace found deep inside the Peruvian army headquarters may have been used to incinerate victims' remains.

Army officials insist the furnace was used to destroy top-secret documents.

Lawmakers also say a former agent and Mr. Fujimori's former wife have testified they were tortured while held in the basement of army intelligence headquarters.

Army intelligence was a branch of the National Intelligence Service run by now disgraced former spy chief Vladimiro Montesinos.

Investigators charge that Mr. Montesinos, who is awaiting trial on charges of corruption and abuse of human rights, used the National Intelligence Service to persecute President Fujimori's political opponents.

Peru's army intelligence gained notoriety for alleged involvement in several high-profile massacres of supposed guerrilla sympathizers in the early 1990's.

Mr. Fujimori's 10-year government was toppled by a corruption scandal in November, 2000.

(reuters, ap)

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