Lima
Former Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori has died at the age of 86. His daughter Keiko Fujimori wrote on the X platform account on behalf of her four children, “Our father Alberto Fujimori has just been taken up to be with the Lord after a long battle with cancer.”
Fujimori was imprisoned for 16 years for serious human rights abuses committed by the assassination squad during his tenure (1990–2000). He was free again in December. As head of state, the son of Japanese immigrants, he imposed strict measures on the security forces against leftists and subversives, and parliament lost its power. At the time, the country was under threat from the Shining Path, a Maoist terrorist group. Tens of thousands of indigenous women were also forcibly sterilized to reduce the number of children they had. They were seen as an obstacle to progress.
Sentenced to 25 years in prison
Fujimori was sentenced to 25 years in prison in 2009. In 2017, he was pardoned by then-President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski and released from prison. However, the Supreme Court later overturned the ruling and Fujimori was sent back to prison. The Constitutional Court finally upheld the 2017 pardon on humanitarian grounds in December. Human rights groups criticized the decision.
The constitution only allows for two terms, but Fujimori ran for a third term in 2000. He won the election, but soon became embroiled in the Montesinos scandal. His intelligence chief, Vladimiro Montesinos, was filmed bribing an opposition lawmaker to persuade him to join Fujimori’s party.
Fujimori initially went to Japan, but was arrested while traveling in Chile and extradited to Peru. It was only in July that Keiko Fujimori, the leader of the right-wing Fuerza Popular Party, announced that her father would run for president again.
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