Former Peruvian president Alberto Fujimori attended on Saturday the nuptials of his daughter Sachi inside the police facility where he is serving 25 years for rights abuses, local media reported.
Sachi Marcela Fujimori, 30, wed German Mark Koening in front of about 40 close family and friends at the tiny chapel inside the facility where Fujimori has his special cell, RPP radio reported.
The bride lives overseas but was said to be determined to have her father at her side at the altar, which was about 400m from Fujimori’s holding cell.
Peruvian President Alan Garcia dismissed charges from political opponents that Fujimori was receiving special treatment.
“Every father has the right to be at his daughter’s side on her wedding day,” Garcia said.
A Lima court convicted Fujimori, now 71, last April of crimes in connection with the activities of an army death squad during his rule.
He was sentenced to 25 years in prison.
Fujimori fled to Asia in 2000 and sent a fax from a Tokyo hotel announcing his resignation as president.
Japan considered him as a national by descent and refused to extradite him.
However, in 2005 he traveled to Chile intending to restart his political career in Peru. He was arrested on arrival and extradited to Peru in 2007.
But the former president’s political legacy has not been totally extinguished.
The oldest of his four children, 34-year-old daughter Keiko, is likely to run for the Peruvian presidency next year and, if successful, has vowed to pardon her father.
Ironically, it was Fujimori who in 1994 denied Garcia’s request to return from exile in Colombia for five hours to attend his father’s funeral.
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