Venezuelan ex-president Lusinchi called to appear in court over 1986 killings

CARACAS, Venezuela

Venezuelan prosecutors have summoned former President Jaime Lusinchi to appear in court next month to face accusations in the 1986 killings of nine people.

The attorney general's office said in a statement Friday that Lusinchi has been called to appear in court on April 1 ''for presumably being linked to the act.''

It said 13 other former officials from his government are also being summoned.

The killings in the western town of Yumare on May 8, 1986, were carried out by security forces. The interior minister at the time, Octavio Lepage, described it as a clash with guerrillas - remnants of leftist rebel bands that largely had put down their weapons by the early 1970s.

But critics have since said evidence suggests the victims were executed without a fight.

Prosecutors reopened the case in 2006 after a court accepted pleas from the victims' families.

There was no immediate reaction from Lusinchi. The former president's whereabouts were not immediately clear, though he has lived abroad since leaving the presidency in 1989, spending time in both Costa Rica and Miami.

Accusations of corruption also arose after Lusinchi's five-year term. The Senate voted in 1991 to hold him ''politically responsible'' for multibillion-dollar fraud, though he has never been tried on corruption charges.

Lusinchi isn't the only former leader to face accusations in Venezuela's courts during President Hugo Chavez's administration.

Venezuela is also seeking the extradition of former President Carlos Andres Perez, who is living in the United States, to face accusations of abuses committed by security forces during bloody street protests in 1989. Perez also faces separate charges of embezzlement.

AP-WS-03-15-08 2237EDT