Gustavo Gorriti

Gustavo Gorriti
Born	1948 Lima, Peru
Nationality	Peruvian
Occupation	journalist
Organization	Caretas, La Prensa
Awards	Maria Moors Cabot Prize (1992) CPJ International Press Freedom Award (1998)

Gustavo A. Gorriti Ellenbogen (born in 1948 in Lima, Peru) is a Peruvian journalist known for his reporting on rebel groups, government corruption, and drug trafficking. In 2011, the European Journalism Centre described him as having "been awarded more prizes than probably any other Peruvian journalist".

Gorriti first gained fame as a journalist in the 1980s reporting on Peru's internal conflicts between the government and rebel groups such as the Shining Path. In addition to his news articles, he wrote a three-volume book on the organization.

While working for the weekly Caretas in 1992, he reported links between the government and narcotics traffickers, particularly implicating Vladimiro Montesinos, President Alberto Fujimori's "strong man". Anger over the articles led a commando squad from the Peruvian army to break into his home and abduct him during the 1992 Peruvian constitutional crisis, in which Fujimori dissolved Congress and detained several opposition figures. Gorriti's wife, who had been present for the kidnapping, followed a plan that the pair had previously arranged, calling international press NGOs as well as the US government. The immediate international pressure caused Gorriti to be transferred to official detention the following day, a response that he later said probably saved his life. He was released on 8 April, two days after his initial abduction.

In 2009, Fujimori was convicted by a Peruvian court for ordering the Gorriti kidnapping, among other human rights abuses, and sentenced to 25 years' imprisonment.

Following his release, Gorriti left Peru. He then worked for a time in the US, first as a fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington, D.C. and at the University of Miami's North-South Center in Miami, Florida.

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