Seven years after fleeing Peru, former president Alberto Fujimori was back in Lima on Saturday to face trial on charges of corruption and responsibility in death squad massacres during his rule.
Fujimori, 69, was immediately flown by helicopter to a temporary detention facility at the Special Police Operations Directorate (DIREOS) after landing in Lima following his extradition from Chile.
Fujimori had resigned by fax from a Tokyo hotel in 2000 after a 10-year presidency that ended with a corruption scandal and was followed by a long legal battle by the Peruvian government to secure his extradition.
PHOTO: AFP
Japan, which granted him citizenship because his parents were Japanese, refused to send him to Peru, but he landed unexpectedly in Chile's capital Santiago in November 2005 in a bid to make a political comeback.
Chilean authorities kept him under house arrest for the better part of his 22 months there until the Chilean Supreme Court ordered his extradition on Friday on charges that could put him in jail for decades.
At DIREOS headquarters, Fujimori will be held in a special detention facility made with reinforced concrete walls and bullet-proof windows that has a bedroom, a study and a bathroom.
He will be allowed to go out on the patio for two hours a day and will have access to newspapers and magazines but no television. During visits, he will have to speak to his family and attorneys through a window.
Hundreds of "Fujimoristas" had gathered at the Jorge Chavez International Airport to welcome their hero with a banner reading "We Defend the Innocence of Fujimori."
But Fujimori's police airplane landed in a military airport in another part of the capital.
"It was a dirty trick by the government," his daughter, Keiko Fujimori, who is a member of Congress, told the supporters before leaving with a disheartened look.
Peruvian authorities have charged Fujimori with corruption and responsibility in the killings of 15 people in Lima's Barrios Altos neighborhood in 1991 and of nine students and a professor at La Cantuta University in 1992.
The killings were carried out by a death squad composed of military soldiers during the Fujimori government's campaign against the Maoist Shining Path insurgency.
Fujimori drew both praise and criticism during his 1990 to 2000 presidency over his strongarm tactics to crush the Shining Path movement in a war that human rights groups say left 70,000 dead or missing.
He had hoped to make a triumphant political comeback, but now could face up to 30 years behind bars for the human rights cases and 10 years for the corruption charges.
Peruvian Foreign Minister Jose Garcia Belaunde said his government will send a new extradition request to Chile in order to charge Fujimori with ordering the killing of 42 suspected Shining Path members after a prison riot in 1992.
In addition to the human rights cases, the Chilean judges recognized a series of corruption charges, including one over the alleged misuse of US$15 million in public funds.
Fujimori's return could pose a problem for Peruvian President Alan Garcia, whose APRA party, lacking a majority, had a tacit alliance with the 13 "Fujimorista" lawmakers in the 120-member unicameral Congress.
Analysts say Fujimori's detention could test the support of his Alliance for the Future party to the government.
Fujimori, who still enjoys support among the poorest Peruvians, said before departing he hoped for a fair trial and predicted he would be greeted with strong popular support.
"I say that Fujimorism is going to mobilize, it is going to be strong. Fujimorism has deep popular roots. These people are going to support me," he said in an interview with Chile's El Mercurio newspaper.
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
TRUMP EFFECT: The win capped one of the most dramatic turnarounds in Canadian political history after the Conservatives had led the Liberals by more than 20 points Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney yesterday pledged to win US President Donald Trump’s trade war after winning Canada’s election and leading his Liberal Party to another term in power. Following a campaign dominated by Trump’s tariffs and annexation threats, Carney promised to chart “a new path forward” in a world “fundamentally changed” by a US that is newly hostile to free trade. “We are over the shock of the American betrayal, but we should never forget the lessons,” said Carney, who led the central banks of Canada and the UK before entering politics earlier this year. “We will win this trade war and
Armed with 4,000 eggs and a truckload of sugar and cream, French pastry chefs on Wednesday completed a 121.8m-long strawberry cake that they have claimed is the world’s longest ever made. Youssef El Gatou brought together 20 chefs to make the 1.2 tonne masterpiece that took a week to complete and was set out on tables in an ice rink in the Paris suburb town of Argenteuil for residents to inspect. The effort overtook a 100.48m-long strawberry cake made in the Italian town of San Mauro Torinese in 2019. El Gatou’s cake also used 350kg of strawberries, 150kg of sugar and 415kg of
RSS