The World - News from April 26, 1988

Peru has dropped all charges against a Chicago woman accused of leading a terrorist squad that killed two government officials last August near the Andean town of Vilcashuaman, a U.S. Embassy spokesman said. Cynthia Stowell McNamara, 39, was released from Lima’s top-security Canto Grande prison over the weekend, the spokesman added. She was arrested Dec. 5 and charged with belonging to Sendero Luminoso (Shining Path), a fanatic Maoist insurgency. Police made the arrest based on a description by witnesses who said the terrorist squad’s leader was a tall woman with a foreign accent. During a prison interview in January, McNamara called the charges an “outrageous mistake” and said she had been in the Andes as a tourist.