A civilian court judge said Wednesday he had shelved criminal charges against two air force pilots who mistakenly shot down a small plane in 2001, killing a Michigan missionary and her infant.
But Judge Roberto Vasquez told The Associated Press that a prosecutor had appealed the ruling to drop negligence and disobedience charges against Peruvian Air Force Maj. Jose Antonio Redhead, Lt. Richard Hercilla and six other air force officials for lack of evidence.
"I cleared the defendants. The prosecutor did not agree," said Vasquez in a telephone interview, adding that the case will go to the Superior Criminal Court in Iquitos.
Redhead and Hercilla piloted the fighter jet that shot down a Cessna float plane, killing Veronica Bowers, 35, of Muskegon, Mich., and her 7-month-old daughter, Charity, in a botched drug interdiction mission in 2001.
Pilot Kevin Donaldson crash-landed the plane on the Amazon River and suffered serious leg wounds. Bowers' husband, Jim, and their son, Cory, escaped serious injury.
A CIA-contracted crew in a nearby surveillance flight identified the Cessna as a possible drug courier. At the last moment, the contractors tried in vain to prevent the Peruvian pilots from opening fire.
A joint U.S.-Peru report presented later that year found that procedural errors, language problems and an overloaded communications system all contributed to the accident.
The United States immediately halted its participation in interdiction program flights in Peru and Colombia. Last year, President Bush authorized the resumption of U.S. drug surveillance flights over Colombia, but the interdiction program remains on hold in Peru.
Peru's military had also started an internal criminal investigation, but jurisdiction was deferred to the civilian court, said Abraham Ramirez, legal counsel to Peru's air force and a member of the Peruvian-U.S. investigative commission.