The ministry said in a statement that Peru's outgoing President Alejandro Toledo and the presidential candidate Alan Garcia had hired Moises Boyer, who said on Wednesday in Lima that he had come to Peru from Venezuela with 19 other Venezuelan soldiers to disrupt Sunday's presidential run-off, on orders from Chavez.

    Boyer also alleged that Chavez had given 600,000 dollars to back the campaign of Ollanta Humala, who leads the Peru Nationalist Union Party and is facing Alan Garcia from the Peru Aprista Party in the upcoming poll.

    Both accusations were categorically rejected by Venezuela, which called Boyer a "mercenary" who had traveled to Colombia with false military documents in 2003, and had sought political asylum there.

    According to the Venezuelan Foreign Ministry, Boyer was the pilot of the Venezuelan president's plane at that time.

    A Colombian magazine editor, who had published the story, had apologized after finding evidence that Boyer's statements were untrue, said the ministry.

    The Peru-Venezuela diplomatic row flared up in March, when Chavez spoke out in favor of Ollanta Humala.

    The two presidents' relationship was at a low ebb when Chavez announced he was resigning from the Andean Community of Nations (CAN), because of free trade deals signed by Peru and Colombia with the United States.

    Later, amid an escalating war of words, Venezuela withdrew its ambassador from Lima in response to Peru's recall of its ambassador from Caracas.

    "The campaign run by Garcia and by the Peruvian government against Chavez continues to be active and unscrupulous," the ministry said. Enditem