AP

LIMA THE jailed brother of Peru’s president was transferred on Saturday from a maximum-security prison to a special lockup on a military base to serve his 19- year-sentence for leading a failed uprising.

Prisons director Jose Perez said in a radio interview that the transfer of Antauro Humala was “strictly for security reasons.” He said the 48-year-old retired army major was moved because Shining Path rebels were housed near him in Piedras Gordas prison and President Ollanta Humala’s government had recently captured their leader, Comrade Artemio.

Perez did not explain the conditions under which Antauro Humala would be held at the army base in Lima’s Chorillos district other than to say he was being held with two military men convicted of human rights violations.

Perez did not respond to repeated phone calls from The Associated Press seekng details.

A former interior minister, Fernando Rospigliosi, complained that the transfer constituted favouritism.

“It’s a terrible signal because it shows that the laws don’t function the same for everyone,” he said.

Antauro Humala led a New Year’s Day takeover in 2005 by 100 army reservists of a police station the Andean town of Andahuaylas to demand the resignation of then- President Alejandro Toledo.

The action failed to trigger a general uprising and four police officers and two army reservists were killed.

Initially sentenced to 25 years in prison, Antauro Humala had the sentence reduced by the Supreme Court in September from aggravated murder to manslaughter. President Humala rose to the rank of army lieutenant colonel and military attache in South Korea before being retired, just prior to the Andahuaylas uprising, over his perceived disloyalty to Toledo.