Fujimori says return to prison would be a ‘death sentence’
LIMA: Peru’s ex- president Alberto Fujimori said from his hospital bed that a return to prison would be a ‘death sentence,’ the day after a court revoked a pardon for crimes against humanity.
Fujimori, 80, addressed a plea to Peru’s President Martin Vizcarra and the South American country’s judiciary in a video recorded at his bedside.
“Please do not kill me. If I return to prison, my heart will not support it. It is too weak to go through the same thing again. Don’t sentence me to death. I can give no more.”
A court on Wednesday annulled a presidential pardon for Fujimori, ending more than nine months of freedom granted under the shock pardon issued by a previous president in December.
However, immediately after his re- arrest Fujimori was admitted to a clinic with heart problems.
His doctor, Alejandro Aguinaga, told reporters he experienced a drop in blood pressure and an accelerated heart beat – the same problems for which he has been hospitalised in the past.
“He is already considered a prisoner,” Interior Minister Mauro Medina told Chile’s RPP radio.
“He is expected to leave the clinic” for the penitentiary, the minister said.
Fujimori received clemency last December on humanitarian grounds, but critics said the move was in exchange for Fujimori’s son helping thenpresident Pedro Pablo Kuczynski avoid impeachment. — AFP