Peru’s Supreme Court has overturned a medical pardon for former President Alberto Fujimori and ordered the strongman be returned to jail to serve out a long sentence for human rights ab
By Franklin Briceno
October 3 2018 9:53 PM
Peru’s Supreme Court has overturned a medical pardon for former President Alberto Fujimori and ordered the strongman be returned to jail to serve out a long sentence for human rights abuses.
Former president Pedro Pablo Kuczynski pardoned Fujimori on humanitarian grounds last Christmas Eve in what was widely seen as an attempt to stave off impeachment by courting favour with Fujimori’s allies in Congress.
Mr Kuczynski resigned three months later.
Almost from the outset, the ruling was slammed by human rights groups as a “pact of impunity”, while the Inter-American Court on Human Rights had also demanded that Peru review its legality.
The high court in its 224-page decision said the pardon was unlawful because Fujimori’s crimes are considered crimes against humanity, and therefore cannot be pardoned under Peruvian and international law.
The presiding magistrate in the case ordered the 80-year-old Fujimori be captured immediately so he can serve out the remaining 14 years of a 25-year sentence for his role in the killing of several civilians, including an eight-year-old boy, during raids by an anti-communist army unit created by his government.
Two police officers entered the rented mansion in Lima where Fujimori has been living since his release to verify his whereabouts.
His lawyer said he would abide by the ruling while appealing against the decision.
“Today is one of the saddest days in my life,” a weeping Keiko Fujimori, the former president’s daughter and current leader of the conservative Popular Force party, told a group of journalists outside her father’s residence.
Fujimori, who governed from 1990 to 2000, remains a polarising figure in Peru.
Some Peruvians laud him for defeating the Maoist Shining Path guerrilla movement, while others loathe him for human rights violations carried out under his government.
A former mathematics professor, Fujimori was a political outsider when he emerged from obscurity to win Peru’s 1990 presidential election over writer Mario Vargas Llosa.
Peru was being ravaged by runaway inflation and guerrilla violence when he took office.
He quickly rebuilt the economy with mass privatisations of state industries.
Defeating the fanatical Shining Path rebels took longer but his fight won him broad-based support.
His presidency collapsed just as dramatically as his rise to power.
After briefly shutting down Congress and putting himself into a third term, Fujimori fled the country in disgrace in 2000 after leaked videotapes showed his spy chief, Vladimiro Montesinos, bribing politicians.
Fujimori went to Japan, his parents’ homeland, and famously sent in his resignation by fax.
Five years later, he stunned supporters and enemies alike when he flew to neighbouring Chile, where he was arrested and extradited to Peru.
Fujimori’s goal was to run for Peru’s presidency again in 2006, but instead he went to trial.
Mr Kuczynski said he was pardoning Fujimori because he suffered a heart condition made worse by prison conditions.
Press Association
Independent.ie Newsdesk The closure of a beautiful bay in Thailand made famous by Leonardo DiCaprio film The Beach is to be extended indefinitely until it recovers from years of environmental damage caused by too…
By Alistair Mason, Press Association You may have seen hidden messages hidden in tweets before – but probably not one quite like this.
By Colleen Long Electronic devices across the United States sounded off as the Federal Emergency Management Agency conducted its first-ever national wireless emergency alert test.
The closure of a beautiful bay in Thailand made…
Peru’s Supreme Court has overturned a…
You may have seen hidden messages hidden in…
Electronic devices across the United States…
Astronomers may have found the first moon outside…
Sometimes your perception of the world and what…
A teacher accused of having a sexual relationship…
In the midst of Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination to the…
Electronic devices sounded off across the United States as the Federal Emergency…
Pope Francis urged Catholic bishops to dream…
Vladimir Putin says Sergei Skripal is a «scumbag» at the Russia Energy Week…
The Prime Minister Theresa May struts onto…
Donald Trump mocks Christine Blasey Ford, who has accused Supreme…
A man has died after he was hit by a window…
Former foreign secretary Boris Johnson says it’s time to «chuck the Chequers…
Donald Trump weighs in on the investigation of Brett Kavanaugh at a press…
Boris Johnson has said that he will never be prime minister during a speech at a…
Donald Trump insults a female reporter during a…
Backbench MP Jacob Rees-Mogg says the European Research Group (ERG),…
Footage shows US Navy sailors rushing to…
Emergency services continue to battle a huge fire in…
Hundreds of protesters took to the streets as Donald Trump arrived in Britain. Here…
