Lima, September 29 (RHC)-- A court in Peru has sentenced the country's former spy chief, Vladimiro Montesinos, to 22 years in jail for the forced disappearance of a professor and two students in 1993.

The victims were killed in detention and their bodies burned in an oven in the basement of the intelligence agency.

Former army chief of staff Nicolas Hermoza Rios was also found guilty of the same crime.

Montesinos, 71, is already serving a sentence for crimes against humanity.

He was widely regarded as the power behind the throne in President Alberto Fujimori's government, which ruled Peru from 1990 to 2000.

The former president is also in jail over human rights abuses committed during his time in office, including authorizing killings carried out by death squads.