Court rules Fujimori can leave prison
Peru’s top court on Thursday reinstated a controversial pardon for polarising former President Alberto Fujimori, who governed the Andean nation during the tumultuous 1990s before being sentenced for human rights violations.
Fujimori, 83, was initially pardoned on Christmas Eve in 2017 after 10 years in jail, a decision that was overturned a few months later after the intervention of an international court on the grounds that it had been irregular.
The latest ruling opens the door for the pardon to be questioned once more in the Costa Rica-based Inter-American Court of Human Rights — although a new decision could take months, said Jo-Marie Burt, a senior fellow at the Washington Office on Latin America.
“The organisations that represent the victims in Peru have already called upon the (Inter-American) Court to have a meeting and to review this decision ... they actually filed the request yesterday,” Ms Burt said.
Fujimori turned around Peru’s economy and ended a period of hyperinflation but was later sentenced for human rights violations involving death squads that cracked down on the brutal Shining Path guerrilla group.
He also sent the military to dissolve Congress and redrafted the Constitution.
Thursday’s ruling showed judges voted 4-3 to free Fujimori. Cesar Nakazaki, a lawyer for Fujimori, said he might only leave prison on Monday or Tuesday.
“I have just spoken with President Fujimori ... he has felt great relief, it was unfair for him to die in prison,” Mr Nakazaki told reporters.
Fujimori, who governed Peru between 1990 and 2000, is a deeply divisive figure, whose political legacy lives on in the Popular Force party controlled by his daughter Keiko.
The ruling triggered an angry reaction from leftist President Pedro Castillo, who called on international courts to “protect the effective practice of justice”, seemingly a reference to the InterAmerican Court.
Left-wing groups called for protests later on Thursday. The first pardon prompted thousands to take to the streets.