Peruvian opposition leader Keiko Fujimori was on Friday released from prison after spending 13 months in pretrial detention in a corruption case linked to Brazilian construction giant Odebrecht.
Her release came days after the Peruvian Constitutional Court ordered her freed in a ruling related only to her detention and which otherwise has no bearing on the corruption case against her.
“For me, it was the most painful event of my life,” Fujimori said as she left prison and hugged her husband in front of a large group of supporters and journalists.
Photo: EPA-EFE
The court “has corrected damage that has been inflicted on us. I will continue to face the investigation, as I have always done,” she said.
Supporters welcomed her release with applause and shouts of “Keiko liberty!” and “Keiko president!”
The 44-year-old eldest daughter of disgraced former Peruvian president Alberto Fujimori had been held since Oct. 31 last year. Her American husband, Mark Vito, had been on hunger strike outside his wife’s prison on the outskirts of Lima to press for her release.
“I’m going to take some time to reunite with my family,” she told journalists, when asked about her immediate political future.
Once Peru’s most popular politician, Keiko Fujimori theoretically now has time to campaign for presidential elections set for July 2021. She is accused of accepting US$1.2 million in illicit party funding for her 2011 election campaign as leader of the right-wing Popular Force party.
Odebrecht has admitted to paying at least US$29 million to Peruvian officials since 2004 and bribing four former Peruvian presidents.
Three of the presidents are being investigated over Odebrecht while a fourth, Alan Garcia, committed suicide in April after police arrived at his house to arrest him for money laundering.
Known simply as Keiko by followers and political rivals alike, she emerged from prison to a very different political landscape to the one she left just more than a year ago.
Once a major player in the country’s politics, Popular Force has lost ground in the past several years, in part due to Keiko Fujimori’s two successive defeats in the second round of presidential elections in 2011 and 2016.
Peruvian President Martin Vizcarra has called for new legislative elections on Jan. 26 after dissolving the unicameral Peruvian Congress in September as part of an anti-corruption campaign.
Keiko Fujimori’s party risks losing its majority in congress, following repeated clashes with Vizcarra, whose anti-graft drive has proven popular with the public.
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