The Constitutional Court (TC) of Peru published this Monday the resolution ordering the release of former President Alberto Fujimori (1990-2000), who is serving a 25-year prison sentence for crimes against humanity.
(Read: President Castillo is saved from being removed by the Congress of Peru)
The ruling exposes what had already been made known on March 17, when the Peruvian high court declared founded a habeas corpus against a resolution that annulled the controversial pardon granted to Fujimori in December 2017 by the then president, Pedro Pablo Kuczynski (2016-2018).
(You are interested in: Peru, the country in which it became almost normal to remove its presidents)
The resolution of the TC restores, therefore, the effects of said pardon and provides for the “immediate release” of the former ruler, 83 years old.
In the document, the court notes that the supreme judge who annulled Fujimori’s humanitarian pardon in 2018 was not empowered to do so and that his sentence, “tainted by incompetence,” was only based on the presumption of unproven irregularities.
It also defends that Kuczynski’s decision “had the necessary elements” and that Fujimori “met the necessary conditions to merit” a humanitarian pardon, a figure of extinction of the sentence that, they recall, seeks to “avoid death in prison of the prisoner who has been serving a final sentence, as a result of the health conditions that afflict him”.
The vote on the appeal was tied with three magistrates in favor and three against, but the casting vote of the president of the country’s highest constitutional body, Augusto Ferrero, broke the equality.
In addition to Ferrero, the magistrates voted in favor of reviving the pardon Ernesto Blume and José Luis Sardón, while Manuel Miranda, Eloy Espinosa-Saldaña and Marianella Ledesma spoke against, who maintains in the document that this ruling “has seriously damaged the Peruvian constitutional legitimacy.”
“I agree that no person should die in prison, but their state of health and the unfavorable conditions of the prison must be determined by medical or penitentiary specialists, but not by three magistrates of the TC,” added Ledesma.
With the sentence drafted and signed, the TC will formalize its resolution to the supreme criminal execution judge, who must abide by the decision and then give the release order to the National Penitentiary Institute (INPE), according to Fujimori’s lawyer, Cesar Nakazaki.
After hearing the decision of the high court, The Peruvian Justice ordered Fujimori to be prevented from leaving the country for 18 months to attend the subpoenas for the case that is still being followed in Pativilca, a massacre of six people perpetrated in 1992.
The TC’s decision, like Fujimori’s own legacy, keeps Peru divided between those who praise his figure, considering that he saved the country from terrorism and economic collapse, and those who emphasize that he was an autocrat who committed serious human rights violations. and he abused democratic institutions to preserve his power.
In this sense, a survey by the Institute of Peruvian Studies (IEP) published this Sunday in the newspaper La República revealed that around 52% of Peruvians are against pardoning the former president, compared to 43% of the population that is favor of the same.
INTERNATIONAL WRITING
*With information from EFE
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