Peru's retrial of Shining Path rebel leader Abimael Guzman turned into a farcical mud slinging today as one judge quit the case and the prosecutor called on the two other justices to resign.
The trial - which puts one of the world's most brutal rebel masterminds back in the limelight after 12 years behind bars - began in chaos a week ago when Guzman and co-defendants hijacked the hearing by chanting communist slogans and punching the air in clenched fist victory salutes.
That unleashed calls, including from prosecutor Mr Edgar Chirinos, for court president Mr Dante Terrel to resign because of his failure to restore order and allowing the rebels to score a huge propaganda coup.
Today, the proceedings stalled again even before the charges were read out against Guzman (69) who led a fanatical "popular war" to impose communism in the Andes and has been officially blamed for half the 69,280 deaths in Peru's rebel wars with the state in the 1980s and 1990s.
Mr Carlos Manrique, one of the two other trial judges, surprisingly announced that he would quit the case because he had taken part in other rebel trials and his impartiality could be in doubt. Prosecutor Edgar Chirinos called for the third judge, Jose de Vinatea, to go as well, saying he had also been involved in one of those rebel cases.
Mr Chirinos, his voice strident, criticized Terrel, saying last week's "shameful" events had rattled faith in the judiciary and "for the sake of decorum," he should quit. But Mr Terrel, visibly angry and his voice at times rising to a shout, dug in his heels. "I swore by God to defend the law ... A judge must carry out his duties at all cost. They have trampled my honor, my dignity," Mr Terrel shot back.