Peru: Constitutional Court orders the release of Alberto Fujimori
Former President Alberto Fujimori, guilty of crimes against humanity, may be released from prison according to the Constitutional Council which restored a presidential pardon from 2017. © Martin Mejia/AP
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The Constitutional Court of Peru ordered this Thursday, March 17 the release of former President Alberto Fujimori (1990-2000), sentenced in 2009 to 25 years in prison for crimes against humanity and corruption.
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Alberto Fujimori will not end his days behind bars.
The Court "
restores the effects of the supreme resolution of December 24, 2017 which granted humanitarian pardon to the plaintiff, and provides for his release
", in the coming days, indicates the supreme body of justice of Peru in its judgment consulted by the AFP.
The decisions of the Constitutional Court are without appeal.
Three judges voted in favor of his release and three against, but the voice of the President of the Constitutional Court is preponderant.
“
It was a very open, very intense decision, with two radically different positions
” around the question of “health reasons”, declared on RPP radio one of the six magistrates of the Court, Eloy Espinoza, who said he spoke out against the release of the ex-president.
The pardon, granted on Christmas Eve 2017 by then President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski for humanitarian reasons, is thus restored.
In October 2018, justice canceled this pardon, then sent ex-president Fujimori back to prison in January 2019.
“
Returning to prison is a slow and certain death sentence
,” said Alberto Fujimori, now 83 and suffering from health problems, at the time.
Guilty of crimes against humanity
Alberto Fujimori ruled Peru with an iron fist in the 1990s. For some, he is the one who boosted the economy of his country, and successfully fought the Marxist guerrillas.
Others mostly remember the corruption and its authoritarian methods.
Faced with growing opposition, he fled to Japan, where his family originated, in November 2000 and announced that he was giving up his mandate by fax.
After being extradited from Chile in 2007, Alberto Fujimori was found guilty by Peruvian justice of crimes against humanity for having ordered
two massacres perpetrated by a death squad
in 1991-1992, within the framework of the fight against Maoist Shining Path guerrillas.
Alberto Fujimori is the only inmate of the small Barbadillo prison, located in the barracks of the police's special operations directorate in eastern Lima, where he returned Monday after 11 days in a clinic for treatment for heart problems.
His supporters and his family had repeatedly asked, without success, for his release on health grounds.
His daughter Keiko had promised to release him in the event of victory in the presidential election organized in 2021. His defeat against the left-wing candidate Pedro Castillo prevented him from doing so.
It is ultimately the justice of his country that will allow his father to regain his freedom.
►Also read: Alberto Fujimori before the judges for the forced sterilization of thousands of women
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Peru
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