LIMA, Peru (Reuters) -- American Lori Berenson, awaiting a June 20
                 verdict in her Peruvian retrial on charges of collaborating with Marxist
                 rebels, will not receive special treatment because of her nationality, the
                 president-elect said.

                 "We aren't going to open the doors of the jails ... and what is valid for Lori
                 Berenson is valid for all prisoners," President-elect Alejandro Toledo said late
                 Friday.

                 "There can't be special treatment according to nationality," Toledo, who takes
                 office July 28, told reporters.

                 Prosecutors are seeking at least 20 years jail for the 31-year-old New Yorker,
                 who was sentenced to life in 1996 by a hooded military judge. She was accused
                 of being a leader of the leftist rebel group Tupac Amaru Revolutionary
                 Movement (MRTA).

                 The ruling was overturned last year and a civilian retrial ordered. Berenson
                 denies all charges against her and says while she shares some of the MRTA's
                 ideological positions, she did not actively assist the group.

                 But most Peruvians, who recall 15 years of leftist violence involving the MRTA
                 and larger Maoist group, Shining Path, see Berenson as a "gringa terrorist" and
                 say she deserves jail.

                 Toledo is scheduled to head to the United States on June 24 to drum up support
                 and funding. The Berenson case has caused friction in the past between Lima
                 and Washington and a number of U.S. lawmakers have long lobbied for her
                 release or pardon.

                 "This is an issue that will be on the table," Toledo said of Berenson's case.

                 Berenson's civilian retrial was ordered a few months before Alberto Fujimori,
                 the Peruvian president who cracked down on rebel violence and instituted the
                 military courts with hooded judges, was ousted in a massive corruption scandal.

                 Berenson's lawyer, Jose Sandoval, failed at the trial to have the presiding judge
                 removed on charges of bias and alleged links with Fujimori's discredited regime,
                 which controlled the courts and which he says used Berenson as a political
                 pawn.

                 Despite big judicial changes since Fujimori left office last year, he says the
                 retrial has been full of irregularities.

                 But asked whether Berenson was receiving a fair trial, Toledo said: "As far as I
                 know, yes."

                   Copyright 2001 Reuters.