Former Peruvian president Alberto Fujimori was convicted of embezzlement and sentenced to seven-and-a-half years in prison on Monday after he admitted illegally paying his spy chief US$15 million in government funds.
Fujimori sat expressionless in front of the three-judge panel as the verdict and sentence were read. He told the court he would seek to nullify the ruling.
The conviction is the third in less than two years for the ex-leader. He was sentenced in April to 25 years in prison for authorizing military death squads during his 10-year rule. Earlier, he was convicted of abuse of power and sentenced to six years for an illegal search.
Peruvian prison sentences do not accumulate, so 25 years is the maximum term the 70-year-old Fujimori can serve.
Last week, Fujimori acknowledged making the irregular payment to intelligence chief Vladimiro Montesinos, but he said he should not be held criminally responsible because he later repaid it with money found in the headquarters of Montesinos’ feared agency.
By acknowledging the payoff, Fujimori avoided a drawn-out trial that could damage his daughter’s candidacy for the 2011 presidential election. Keiko Fujimori has said she will pardon her father if she wins.
During a spirited defense on Friday that critics called a campaign speech for his daughter, Fujimori said he was obligated to make the payment to avoid a military coup plotted by Montesinos.
“The true judgment for me is that of the people, who have long absolved me in their hearts,” Fujimori said.
The former president still enjoys some popularity for neutralizing Shining Path guerrillas that nearly toppled the government, but a series of recent trials have tied him to corruption and human rights abuses.
During his defense, Fujimori said his previous convictions and the embezzlement case were politically motivated, and he did not expect to find justice in court.
Presiding Judge Cesar San Martin opened the hearing on Monday by denying any political intent.
Fujimori faces yet another trial on allegations that he authorized illegal phone taps and congressional bribes and that he used state funds to purchase a television station to air political propaganda.
As his government was collapsing in 2000 after a videotape surfaced showing Montesinos bribing a congressman, Fujimori signed an executive order transferring US$15 million to the Defense Ministry to defend against a supposed incursion of Colombian rebels in Peru.
The court ruled the money was handed over to Montesinos, who moved it to foreign bank accounts and fled for Panama.
Montesinos is now serving a 20-year term for bribing lawmakers and businessmen and selling weapons to Colombian rebels.
Prosecutors dispute Fujimori’s claim that he found US$15 million in Montesinos’ intelligence agency 41 days after the illegal payoff and have called for a separate investigation.
The court also ruled that Fujimori must join three former Cabinet ministers in contributing to a US$1 million reparations payment to the government.
HISTORIC: After the arrest of Kim Keon-hee on financial and political funding charges, the country has for the first time a former president and former first lady behind bars South Korean prosecutors yesterday raided the headquarters of the former party of jailed former South Korean president Yoon Suk-yeol to gather evidence in an election meddling case against his wife, a day after she was arrested on corruption and other charges. Former first lady Kim Keon-hee was arrested late on Tuesday on a range of charges including stock manipulation and corruption, prosecutors said. Her arrest came hours after the Seoul Central District Court reviewed prosecutors’ request for an arrest warrant against the 52-year-old. The court granted the warrant, citing the risk of tampering with evidence, after prosecutors submitted an 848-page opinion laying out
STAGNATION: Once a bastion of leftist politics, the Aymara stronghold of El Alto is showing signs of shifting right ahead of the presidential election A giant cruise ship dominates the skyline in the city of El Alto in landlocked Bolivia, a symbol of the transformation of an indigenous bastion keenly fought over in tomorrow’s presidential election. The “Titanic,” as the tallest building in the city is known, serves as the latest in a collection of uber-flamboyant neo-Andean “cholets” — a mix of chalet and “chola” or Indigenous woman — built by Bolivia’s Aymara bourgeoisie over the past two decades. Victor Choque Flores, a self-made 46-year-old businessman, forked out millions of US dollars for his “ship in a sea of bricks,” as he calls his futuristic 12-story
FORUM: The Solomon Islands’ move to bar Taiwan, the US and others from the Pacific Islands Forum has sparked criticism that Beijing’s influence was behind the decision Tuvaluan Prime Minister Feletei Teo said his country might pull out of the region’s top political meeting next month, after host nation Solomon Islands moved to block all external partners — including China, the US and Taiwan — from attending. The Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) leaders’ meeting is to be held in Honiara in September. On Thursday last week, Solomon Islands Prime Minister Jeremiah Manele told parliament that no dialogue partners would be invited to the annual gathering. Countries outside the Pacific, known as “dialogue partners,” have attended the forum since 1989, to work with Pacific leaders and contribute to discussions around
END OF AN ERA: The vote brings the curtain down on 20 years of socialist rule, which began in 2005 when Evo Morales, an indigenous coca farmer, was elected president A center-right senator and a right-wing former president are to advance to a run-off for Bolivia’s presidency after the first round of elections on Sunday, marking the end of two decades of leftist rule, preliminary official results showed. Bolivian Senator Rodrigo Paz was the surprise front-runner, with 32.15 percent of the vote cast in an election dominated by a deep economic crisis, results published by the electoral commission showed. He was followed by former Bolivian president Jorge “Tuto” Quiroga in second with 26.87 percent, according to results based on 92 percent of votes cast. Millionaire businessman Samuel Doria Medina, who had been tipped
RSS