Results of Peru's presidential election could mean freedom for imprisoned dictator.
| Autor | Jana, Elsa Chanduvi |
Although the last attempt to defend the former Peruvian dictator Alberto Fujimori Fujimori (1990-2000) by annulling his prison sentence for human rights violations didn't succeed, some fear that if his daughter Keiko Fujimori Higuchi is elected president on the June 5 runoff, the prisoner would be freed (NotiSur, Oct. 19, 2012, April 26, 2013, and April 22, 2016).
Fujimori Fujimori was sentenced to 25 years in prison in 2009 in the Special Penal Room of the Supreme Court of Justice, then presided by Chief Justice Cesar San Martin Castro, for killings in Barrios Altos in 1991 (15 residents of this low-income neighborhood near Lima) and in Cantuta in 1992 (a teacher and nine students), and for the kidnappings of journalist Gustavo Gorriti and businessman Samuel Dyer following Fujimori's April 5, 1992, coup. At present, Fujimori could be freed no sooner than Feb. 10, 2032 (NotiSur, June 11, 1991, Sept. 7, 2001, and May 1, 2009).
In April, Fujimori Fujimori's lawyer, William Paco Castillo, filed a writ of habeas corpus with the Constitutional Tribunal, asking for the sentence be annulled because Fujimori had not been given due process. Paco Castillo asked for a new trial and for the former leader to be set free since the period for detention had been exceeded. The lawyer argued that Chile had allowed Fujimori's extradition in 2007 so he could be tried in Peru only for crimes of homicide, aggravated assault, and kidnapping, and that Fujimori was then found guilty of crimes against humanity, a conviction that prevents him from being granted a humanitarian pardon, home arrest, and other privileges (NotiSur, July 27, 2007, Oct. 5, 2007, and Jan. 11, 2008). The lawyer also maintained that Justice San Martin had not been impartial because he had exchanged e-mails with foreign jurists, asking them about the sentence. He said they could have influenced his decision.
On two previous opportunities in 2014 and 2015, the judiciary declared the habeas corpus petition unfounded. This is why the case was taken to the Constitutional Tribunal. On May 3, that court ruled, 6-1, that the appeal filed by the former dictator's defense was unfounded. In that ruling, published May 10, the Constitutional Tribunal concluded that the Supreme Court had established that Fujimori Fujimori had been convicted of the crimes of homicide, serious injury, and aggravated kidnapping, the specific crimes authorized in his extradition. The ruling also stresses that the use of the term "crimes against humanity" in the...
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