Sentenced to 25 years in prison for crimes against humanity, Alberto Fujimori was released following an order from the Constitutional Court (TC) of Peru, which on Tuesday demanded his immediate release in restitution of a pardon received in 2017. A judicial measure that the Court Inter-American Court of Human Rights had requested not to execute it because it considered that it went against the rights of the former president’s victims.
The release of former President Alberto Fujimori (1990-2000) was finalized, after the Constitutional Court (TC) of Peru ordered his release on Tuesday, December 5, despite the fact that the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IAC Court) ordered the contrary last year and repeated his request the same Tuesday night.
Through a resolution signed on Tuesday, December 5, 2023, three of the current six members of the TC indicated that “the National Penitentiary Institute (INPE) and the director of the Barbadillo Prison (where he was held)” ordered the immediate release of Fujimori.
The president of the highest court, Francisco Morales, signed that document, which established Fujimori’s release, which took place this Wednesday, December 6, 2023.
While awaiting release, the Inter-American Court published a resolution in which it urged the State of Peru to “guarantee the right of access to Justice for the victims of the Barrios Altos and La Cantuta cases” and asked that it refrain “from executing the order of the Constitutional Court of Peru”.
The pardon for Fujimori
His case set a precedent by becoming the first former president of Latin America to be convicted of crimes against human rights.
It was in March 2009, after 15 months of trial in Lima, that the former president of Peru was sentenced to 25 years in prison by the Supreme Court for human rights violations. H H. committed by death squads linked to the Government, in particular, within the framework of the fight by state forces against the Maoist guerrilla Shining Path, during the 1990s.
At 70 years old and with a sentence that would make him spend the last years of his life behind bars, Fujimori was found guilty of four charges related to massacres that left 25 dead and the kidnappings of a journalist and a businessman, during his mandate.
The former Peruvian president defended his name and pleaded innocent. He said that he had no knowledge of what the paramilitary squads did and that these activities had been carried out without his knowledge.
The Alberto Fujimori case: a judicial process with many twists
As a salvation for Fujimori, and in the middle of Christmas Eve 2017, the then president Pedro Pablo Kuczynski (PPK) decided to grant him a humanitarian pardon, an action that was not completely carried out, since in March of the following year some audios were revealed that compromised Fujimori congressmen and the Executive on the purchase of votes to avoid a request for Kuczynski’s dismissal. Amid the scandal, the pardon was not carried out and was annulled by the Supreme Court.
In May 2018, the IACHR also asked the Peruvian State to guarantee the administration of Justice for the victims of the Barrios Alto and La Cantuta cases, for which former President Fujimori was convicted.
With this judicial setback, Fujimori’s lawyers decided to present a habeas corpus seeking their client’s release. Time passed around the case and it arrived at the request of the Constitutional Court of Peru.
On March 17, 2022, the TC recognized Alberto Fujimori’s habeas corpus and with this, reactivated the pardon granted by President PPK, although it was later suspended, at the request of the Inter-American Court.
And precisely this movement by the IACHR kept the scenario unchanged for Fujimori while he already spent more than 13 years behind bars, until the turn that occurred on November 29, when the Constitutional Court (TC) reactivated the case so that the former president was released.
Three days later, a regional judge, Vicente Fernández, in charge of the case, declared inadmissible the execution of the TC ruling of March 17, 2022, which reestablished the pardon in favor of Fujimori, arguing that he did not have the jurisdiction to execute this decision, he then returned the case to the TC and it confirmed on Tuesday, December 5, the order for the release of Alberto Fujimori.
Reactions to Fujimori’s release
Political parties and international entities have spoken out about the TC’s release order. César Muñoz, from the Human Rights Watch organization, denounced in his X account that the Constitutional Court of Peru did not properly call two magistrates to make the final decision.
Meanwhile, César Ochoa, one of the judges of the TC, spoke about the functioning of the Court regarding delicate issues like this. In an interview with the Epicentro media, he said that the entity’s agenda is open to the public.
🎯 “(The issues that are voted on in the TC) are put on the agenda, both in the chambers and in the plenary session, and even more so in a case of doubt, a case of such relevance,” he states in @Epicentro_Tv César Ochoa Cardich, magistrate of the @TC_Peruabout the resolution ordering the release of Alberto… pic.twitter.com/3KcBVGF3kW
— Epicentro.TV (@Epicentro_TV) December 6, 2023
Meanwhile, some of his family members celebrated the court’s decision. “You don’t know the joy, the emotion I feel, really resisting and enduring so many years, until finally damn justice has been done. (…) You don’t know the claim we feel right now, joy and eternal gratitude,” he said for his part one of the sons of the former president and the youngest of the Fujimori Higuchi brothers, in an audio accessed by the local media Exitosa.
The spokesperson for the Fuerza Popular party, Miguel Torres, reacted to the IACHR’s pronouncements on his X account.
“In Peru we are not in a democracy”
Since the Constitutional Court ordered the release of Fujimori, some legal experts have questioned its decision, after he had decided not to listen to the requests of the Inter-American Court not to release the convicted former president.
In an interview with France 24, Luciano López, political analyst and professor at the PUCP of Peru, said that the TC’s decision is questionable. “I see that it is more of a political decision than something that is resolved or legally sustained, because in reality, for a national body like the Constitutional Court to try to tell an international body ‘you are not competent’, is something that does not have much meaning.” legal logic”.
For his part, Vlado Castañeda, an expert in public policies, interviewed in the NTN24 media, said that ““We must take into account” the impact that the “image (of Peru) may have on an international scale. With this we put ourselves at the level of Nicaragua and Venezuela, which have disobeyed the Inter-American Court of Human Rights. “This generates a ‘breakdown’ of the entire constitutional system.”
And for her part, María Ysabel Cedano, human rights defender, expressed that Fujimori’s release “is regrettable” and that “there is no legal security, there is no judicial guarantee, there is a background here, we are seeing a prosecutor of the nation and congressmen linked to decisions that affect the Public Ministry, the Ombudsman’s Office and the National Board of Justice. In Peru we are not in a democracy.”
With local media
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