Lori Berenson home for the holidays for the first time in 16 years

Political analyst Aldo Panfichi, a Catholic University professor, said he believed she was not the victim of a conspiracy.

"It is highly probable that this is a question of excess bureaucracy by midlevel functionaries or miscoordination and lack of clarity between state agencies," he said.

The court ruled that Berenson was not a flight risk.

By law, she must remain in Peru until her full sentence lapses unless President Ollanta Humala decides to commute it.

Berenson had admitted helping the Tupac Amaru rebel group rent a safe house where authorities seized a cache of weapons after a shootout with the rebels. She insists she didn't know guns were stored there and says she never joined the group.

In 1996, a military court of hooded judges convicted Berenson of treason and sentenced her to life in prison. After U.S. pressure, she was retried by a civilian court.

State anti-terrorism attorney Julio Galindo opposed Berenson's parole from the start, and succeeded last year in having her returned to prison on a technicality for 2 1/2 months until a court ordered her freed in November.

Peru remains deeply scarred from its 1980-2000 conflict, which claimed some 70,000 lives.

Its gaping inequalities drew the young Berenson to Peru from El Salvador, where she had worked for the country's top rebel commander during negotiations that led to a 1992 peace accord.

Tupac Amaru was a lesser player in Peru's conflict, and Berenson sought it out, she told the AP in an interview last year, because it was similar to other revolutionary movements in Latin America.

The group never set off car bombs or engaged in the merciless slaughter of thousands as Shining Path rebels did, but it did engage in kidnappings and selective killings.

In the 1980s, it was known for hijacking grocery trucks and distributing food to the poor.

The group most famously raided the Japanese embassy in Peru in 1996 during a party and held 72 hostages for more than four months. A government raid killed all the rebel hostage takers.

Berenson was arrested leaving Peru's Congress and accused of helping plan its armed takeover, which never happened.

She was initially unrepentant, but harsh prison life softened her. She was praised as a model prisoner in the report that supported her parole.

Some Peruvians still consider her a terrorist. She had been insulted in the street, and news media have repeatedly hounded and mobbed her.

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Associated Press writer Martin Villena contributed to this report.

IN PICTURES: Lori Berenson, and other Americans arrested abroad

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