Former Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori is set to be released more than ten years before his sentence for human rights violations expires.
The constitutional court of the South American country on Thursday granted a motion to annul the lifting of a pardon given to Fujimori - the pardon is thus reinstated.
The then President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski had pardoned the former head of state on Christmas 2017 because of his poor health on humanitarian grounds.
Peru's Supreme Court ruled this unconstitutional and overturned the pardon in October 2018.
According to media reports, Peru's Deputy Justice Minister Juan Carrasco has now announced that the government will appeal Thursday's judgment before the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (CIDH).
Pardon is out of the question for crimes as serious as crimes against humanity.
Foreign Minister César Landa wrote on Twitter that the verdict was invalid because it went against previous CIDH decisions.
Fujimori, 83, was serving a 25-year prison sentence for serious human rights violations.
During his term of office from 1990 to 2000, he had the security forces take rigorous action against left-wing and allegedly subversive forces, and parliament was disempowered.
At the time, the state saw itself threatened by the Maoist terrorist organization “Shining Path”.
In addition, tens of thousands of indigenous women were forcibly sterilized in order to reduce their number of children.
They were seen as an obstacle to development.