Peru is this Wednesday waiting for the release of former president Alberto Fujimori, sentenced to 25 years in prisonafter the decision of the Constitutional Court (TC) that ordered his immediate release in restitution of the pardon received in 2017.
Fujimori’s supporters waited with great enthusiasm for the departure of the former president (1990-2000) at the door of the Barbadillo prison, while the relatives of the victims of the massacres of Barrios Altos and La Cantuta, for which the former ruler was sentencedprotested the ruling of the TC outside the Palace of Justice.
Why was former President Fujimori convicted and why is his release coming now? ABC of the case.
Why was Alberto Fujimori sentenced?
Former President Alberto Fujimori governed Peru between 1990 and 2000. Of Japanese descent, with a successful career as a university professor, he became the first son of immigrants to win the presidency of Peru, defeating the arch-favorite Mario Vargas Llosa at the polls.
With the rationality of a mathematician and Japanese restraint, Fujimori applied a heavy hand to dismantle the guerrillas. In fact, the former president was very popular for his relentless fight against the Maoist guerrilla Shining Path, whose main leaders were arrested, although some remnants dedicated exclusively to drug trafficking in the central jungle of the country are still active.
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But the former president ended up in prison accused of violating human rights. Since 2009 he has been serving a sentence for “crimes against humanity” in the Barbadillo prison, a small prison for former presidents east of Lima. for the death of 25 people in two massacres perpetrated in 1991-1992 by an army squad that accused them of being supposed Shining Path guerrillas.
He was also convicted of the kidnapping of a journalist and a businessman after the “self-coup” he carried out in April 1992.
Fujimori has a total of four judicial convictions for crimes against humanity and corruption, the oldest of them to 25 years in prison.
Alberto Fujimori, former Peruvian president.
In November 2000, amid growing opposition after 10 years of government,
Fujimori fled to Japan, the land of his ancestors, and resigned from the presidency by fax.
He had held almost absolute power after carrying out a “self-coup” on April 5, 1992, dissolving Congress and intervening in the Judiciary.
Why will Fujimori be released?
Fujimori will regain his freedom after several turns around his controversial case. At the end of 2017, Former president Pedro Pablo Kuczynki (2016-2018) granted him pardon for humanitarian reasons, but the Peruvian justice system revoked it in 2019, responding to a request from the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACtHR) in favor of the victims of the former president.
“Going back to prison is a slow and certain death sentence,” Fujimori, who had suffered from tongue cancer and heart problems, said then. Additionally, he slept with supplemental oxygen due to low saturation.
(You can read: Barbadillo, the Peruvian prison where three former presidents are held)
The then president Pedro Pablo Kuczynski pardoned him on the grounds that a medical board had determined that he suffered from a “progressive, degenerative and incurable disease” and that the prison conditions posed a serious risk to his life.
However, subsequent investigations indicated that the pardon was granted as a result of an apparent political agreement. with the former president’s youngest son, then-legislator Kenji Fujimori, to prevent the impeachment from corruption accusations against Kuczynski, who finally resigned from office in March 2018.
Fujimori’s pardon was restored again in March 2022 by the Constitutional Court. But when his release seemed imminent, The Inter-American Court asked Peru to refrain from releasing Fujimori until reviewing a family appeal of those murdered by the army in the nineties.
![Pedro Pablo Kuczynski](https://www.eltiempo.com/files/article_content_new/uploads/2019/04/17/5cb74bc33c744.jpeg)
Pedro Pablo Kuczynski, president of Peru between 2016 and 2018.
Luka González / AFP
What does this Tuesday’s decision say then?
This Tuesday, The Constitutional Court of Peru ordered the release, for humanitarian reasons, of the elderly former president, despite the fact that the Inter-American Court of Human Rights ordered otherwise last year.
The Constitutional Court justified its decision in an order alleging Fujimori’s “broken” health. At the same time, he stressed that The former president “has served approximately two-thirds of his sentence,” which makes him a beneficiary of the pardon.
The resolution, which was signed by 3 of the current 6 members of the TC, with the casting vote of the president of the organization, Francisco Morales, declared “the appeal for reconsideration was founded in the end of the direct and immediate execution of the sentence of 12 last March, relapse in the present process”.
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Last week, the same court had already ordered the release of Fujimori, But Judge Vicente Fernández declared himself not competent to authorize his release from prison, so the case returned to the Constitutional Court, which ruled this Tuesday and issued its final ruling.
85 years old, Fujimori suffers from tongue cancer, atrial fibrillation, hypertension, among other ailments.
Last week, hours before the Ica judge’s decision, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) expressed its concern over the possibility that the TC’s resolution would lead to Fujimori’s release.
The organization recalled that on April 7, 2022 “it established the reasons why The State must refrain from granting a pardon ‘for humanitarian reasons’ in compliance with inter-American standards established in the supervision resolutions of the Barrios Altos and La Cantuta cases”.
![Alberto Fujimori](https://www.eltiempo.com/files/article_content_new/uploads/2023/12/05/656f83f30edbb.jpeg)
Alberto Fujimori, former president of Peru.
When will he be released?
In the order, the TC “orders that the National Penitentiary Institute (INPE) and the director of the Barbadillo Prison (where he remains imprisoned), on the dayarrange for the immediate freedom of the favored party, Alberto Fujimori.”
According to his daughter Keiko Fujimori this Tuesday, an apparent error in the registration of the signatures in the resolution of the Constitutional Court of Peru that ordered the release of the former president He prevented his release this Tuesday and stated that it would be necessary to wait until this Wednesday.
We hope that in the next few hours, early tomorrow (Wednesday), this error can be corrected to execute freedom
In statements to the media, the former presidential candidate explained that “there has been a small administrative obstacle that has prevented (the release) from being carried out today (Tuesday).”
“We hope that in the next few hours, early tomorrow (Wednesday), this error can be corrected to execute the freedom” of his father, Fujimori added.
Lawyer Elio Riera, for his part, assured that “the president (Fujimori) has been very agreeable, he has taken the mandate” of the judges with great joy.
How did Peru receive the decision?
The reactions have been diverse, because the figure of Fujimori still divides the country between those who praise his figure, considering that he saved his country from terrorism and economic collapse, and those who emphasize that he was an autocrat who committed serious violations of human rights and abused democratic institutions to preserve his power.
Thus, a group of Fujimori supporters arrived at the prison with white t-shirts printed with the phrase “Fujimori freedom”, so the public force redoubled surveillance outside the prison, according to images from private television.
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“Justice is done to a man who did so much for Peru,” celebrated Congressman Alejandro Aguinaga of Fuerza Popular, the party of Keiko Fujimori, the former president’s eldest daughter.
However, the victims of his government categorically rejected the judges’ decision. About thirty people, with flowers and photos of university students murdered by the military squad, gathered in front of the courthouse chanting “the pardon is an insult.”
“This is an outrage, a violation of the right to justice that the families of the victims have,” said to the AFP Carmen Amaro, sister of student Armando Amaro Cóndor, victim of the massacre at La Cantuta University in 1992.
![Fujimori](https://www.eltiempo.com/files/article_content_new/uploads/2023/12/06/65707a7632586.jpeg)
Supporters of former Peruvian president Alberto Fujimori gather at the entrance to the Barbadillo prison.
In addition, The Human Rights Association strongly condemned the decision, considering that it represents contempt for the Inter-American Court. “The international community is closely watching this challenge to international legality,” he added in a statement.
Carlos Rivera, lawyer for the victims of the Barrios Altos and La Cantuta massacres, assured for his part that the TC’s decision is a “breaking point” in the relationship between Peru and the inter-American system.
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The lawyer recalled that the Peruvian State has until this Wednesday to respond to a request made last week by the Inter-American Court for its resolution to comply with the order it gave not to release Fujimori.
He noted that, after this, the Court “is going to call a compliance control hearing” and he is “completely sure that the court will ratify its resolution again” and “in the next few days Fujimori will have to return” to prison.
*With AFP and EFE
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