Peru’s high court orders Fujimori back to prison
LIMA, Peru — Peru’s Supreme Court on Wednesday annulled a pardon given to Alberto Fujimori, a former president who was serving a lengthy sentence for human right abuses, and ordered him sent back to prison immediately.
The decision was hailed by human rights advocates, but defiant supporters of the former president gathered outside his house Wednesday afternoon. Fujimori’s politically powerful daughter, Keiko Fujimori, condemned the court decision.
“This is persecution against my family,” she said.
It was the latest dramatic turn for Fujimori, 80, who ruled as a dictator in the 1990s after suspending the constitution, only to land in a prison cell when he tried to stage a political comeback in the early 2000s.
He was freed last December, but his fate was reversed again Wednesday, with the Supreme Court issuing orders for his arrest “so he would be returned to penitentiary,” according to a statement released on Twitter.
The annulment was the latest episode in a drama that has captivated the nation since Fujimori’s pardon late last year, which brought back memories of his brutal dictatorship and played a part in the toppling of a president this year.
Fujimori had been sentenced in 2009 to 25 years in prison for rights abuses that included the killing of more than two dozen people by a military death squad that prosecutors said Fujimori had created. Last December, President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski pardoned Fujimori on medical grounds.
The announcement took Peru by surprise as Kuczynski was not an ally of the expresident. But he was facing an impeachment threat led by the former president’s daughter, Keiko Fujimori, who held a seat in Congress, leading many to see the pardon as part of a deal for the president’s survival.
But the move backfired as victims’ groups organized protests, and the United Nations condemned the release. By March, Keiko Fujimori led another push to oust Kuczynski amid a corruption scandal, and the president resigned.
The former dictator, meanwhile, had remained free.