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, according to BBC News.

They 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 authorising killings carried out by death squads.

This latest trial of Montesinos has confirmed the existence of a secret detention centre at the army headquarters in the capital Lima, the prosecution said.

Prosecutor Carlos Rivera said that "these crimes which occurred in the basement of the army intelligence service can't but prove the existence of a systematic policy of violating people's human rights".