LIMA, Peru (AP) -- The lawyer for an American woman on trial for alleged
                  collaboration with leftist guerrillas asked judges Thursday to throw out most of
                  the prosecution's case, arguing police violated her rights by covertly bugging
                  her conversation with her first attorney.

                  Retired police Gen. Juan Gonzales told a local radio station earlier this week that
                  authorities had secretly recorded a conversation between Lori Berenson and her
                  then-lawyer, Grimaldo Achahui, hours after her 1995 arrest.

                  The three-judge panel presiding over the case said it would not make an
                  immediate ruling on the motion.

                  Defense attorney Jose Luis Sandoval argued that the supposed videotape was illegally obtained,
                  violated Berenson's right to attorney-client confidentiality and tainted the police investigation.

                  The prosecution's case is based largely on statements from guerrillas belonging
                  to the Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement presented during a secret military
                  trial that denied her any semblance of a defense.

                  The rebels arrested have since altered, recanted or disavowed those statements
                  that had implicated Berenson in the first trial, Sandoval has said.

                  Peru's top military court overturned the conviction last August, paving the way
                  for the civilian retrial.

                  Prosecutors allege she rented a house in 1995 as a hide-out for the rebels and
                  posed as a journalist with the wife of the group's top commander to enter the
                  legislature to collect information.

                  Berenson denies the charges and maintains she did not know her housemates or
                  the woman, whom she says she hired as a photographer for an article she was
                  preparing, were rebels.

                  Copyright 2001 The Associated Press.