The Constitutional Court of Peru (TC) ordered this Thursday to release the former president Alberto Fujimorisentenced to 25 years in prison for human rights abuses, by restoring a pardon that was granted in December 2017 and annulled ten months later.
The judgment of the highest court, which is unappealable, declared the habeas corpus claim founded in favor of the former president and “restored the effects of Supreme Resolution 281-2017-JUS, of December 24, 2017, which granted humanitarian pardon to the plaintiff , and disposes of his freedom”.
fujimori83, who ruled between 1990 and 2000, could be released from prison in the coming days, a judicial source told AFP who requested anonymity.
After being extradited from Chile in 2007, the former president was convicted of the massacres of Barrios Altos (15 dead, including a child) and La Cantuta (10 dead), perpetrated by military squads during his government.
The vote of the six magistrates that make up the court resulted in a tie. But the vote of the president of the TC, Augusto Ferrero, which counts as double, tipped the balance in favor of fujimori.
“The norm says that when there is a tie, the president has a double vote or a quality vote,” the judicial source explained to AFP.
Habeas corpus appeals must be resolved by a minimum of four votes, according to the rules of the TC.
“What has happened has been a very open, very intense decision with two radically different positions alleging health reasons,” Judge Eloy Espinoza, one of those who voted against the release of the former president, told RPP radio.
The TC made the decision by accepting a habeas corpus filed by citizen Gregorio Parco in 2020.
In his appeal, Parco affirmed that Fujimori’s health was “deteriorated” and that having him imprisoned “is like having the dead heroes Tupac Amaru II, an enemy of Spain, imprisoned in spirit.” [ejecutado en 1781]or Francisco Bolognesi, enemy of Chile”, fallen in combat in 1880.
sole inmate
Fujimori is the only inmate of the small Barbadillo prison, located in the headquarters of the Directorate of Special Police Operations, in the east of limeto which he returned on Monday after spending 11 days in a clinic for heart problems.
There he grows flowers, paints oil paintings and receives family visits.
Pardoned on Christmas Eve in 2017 by the then President Peter Paul Kuczynski Alleging humanitarian reasons, in October 2018 the justice annulled the decision and returned him to prison in January 2019.
“Going back to prison is a slow and sure death sentence,” said Fujimori, who had suffered from tongue cancer and heart problems. He was sleeping with supplemental oxygen due to low saturation.
Known as “El Chino”, Fujimori was very popular when he was president. But in November 2000, amid growing opposition after 10 years of rule, he fled to Japanthe 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 Power of attorneysupported by the armed forces and a strategy by his intelligence adviser, Vladimiro Montesinos, gray eminence of the regime, now imprisoned.
pardon for votes
With four judicial sentences for crimes against humanity and corruption and with his weakened health, Fujimori spent the last few years alternating prison with hospitals, while his eldest daughter, Keiko Fujimori she became his political heiress, running three times for the presidency (2011, 2016 and 2021).
Considered a hero for many Peruvians and a villain for others, he received a presidential pardon on December 21, 2017, after then-legislator Kenji Fujimori (Alberto’s youngest son) and a dozen congressmen from the Fujimori party prevented with their votes the impeachment of President Pablo Kuczynski.
Kuczynski’s dismissal was promoted by Keiko Fujimori. The brothers grew apart over this feud, but Kenji again supported her in her presidential campaign in 2021.
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