Peru police arrest seven ahead of global summits

LIMA (Reuters) - Peruvian police arrested seven leftists accused of plotting to disrupt upcoming international meetings in the South American country, the head of police told state news agency Andina on Saturday.

Police chief Gen. Octavio Salazar said authorities arrested six women and one man on Friday who belonged to a radical leftist coalition based in Venezuela known as the Bolivarian Continental Coordination group.

"Everything indicates that these people were planning some action against the summits that will take place in our country," Salazar told local media.

Peru will host a summit of Latin American and European heads of state in May and is the site of an Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation meeting in November.

The seven Peruvians were arrested in northern Peru after returning from an international meeting of leftist activists in Ecuador's capital, Quito, Salazar told the news agency.

Police officials were not available by telephone to clarify what kind of action the group may have been planning.

Salazar said police had linked the Bolivarian Continental Coordination group to the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, and Peru's Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement.

About 70,000 people were kidnapped and killed in Peru from 1980 to 2000, as government security forces fought leftist guerrilla groups like Tupac Amaru and the Maoist Shining Path.

Andina news agency reported the police's anti-terrorism unit would take over the case once the seven people under arrest were moved to Lima.

(Reporting by Jean Luis Arce; Writing by Hilary Burke; Editing by Peter Cooney)