by the El Reportero‘s wire services
Peru’s Constitutional Court on Tuesday ordered the release of former president Alberto Fujimori, 85, who was serving a 25-year prison sentence for crimes against humanity committed on his watch.
A court ruling seen by AFP ordered the “immediate” release under supervision of Fujimori, who was president from 1990 to 2000. The ruling reinstates an earlier pardon.
Fujimori has been jailed since 2009 over massacres committed by army death squads in 1991 and 1992 in which 25 people, including a child, were killed in supposed anti-terrorist operations.
In February, Fujimori was admitted to hospital suffering from an irregular heartbeat.
He suffers recurrent respiratory, neurological and hypertension problems and has had tongue cancer.
Tuesday’s ruling reinstated a pardon granted to the ex-president for humanitarian reasons in 2017 but revoked by the Supreme Court two years later.
Last year, the Constitutional Court again ordered his release on humanitarian grounds, but the Inter-American Court of Human Rights urged Peru not to free him, and Lima agreed.
Fujimori was impeached in November 2000 on grounds of “moral incapacity” and was accused of corruption.
The previous day he had fled to Japan, where his parents were from, and resigned by fax. He later went to Chile, from where he was extradited in 2007.
Tuesday’s ruling cannot be appealed.
Fujimori was serving his sentence at the small Barbadillo jail at the barracks of the special operations police in eastern Lima.
There he grows flowers, paints and receives family visits.
His family has submitted several petitions to have him released on health grounds but those were all rejected.
Fujimori’s lawyer Elio Riera traveled to the prison after Tuesday’s ruling to fill out the documents required for the release, he told RPP radio, adding the ex-president was “very satisfied” and received the news with “great joy.”
A group of Fujimori’s supporters arrived at the prison wearing white T-shirts emblazoned with the phrase “Fujimori freedom.”
“Justice has been done for a man who did so much for Peru,” said lawmaker Alejandro Aguinaga of Fuerza Popular, the party of Keiko Fujimori, the ex-president’s eldest daughter.
Elsewhere, in front of the justice ministry, some 30 people holding flowers and photos of victims of the army death squads, gathered to protest the order for his release.
Fujimori has divided Peruvians like few other ex-leaders.
For some, he bolstered economic growth through his neo-liberal economic policies, and deserves praise for crushing left-wing rebel groups.
Others remember with loathing his ruthless, authoritarian government style.
In a separate case, he pleaded guilty to bribing lawmakers and spying on rivals while in power.
Fujimori was also investigated over the forced sterilization of hundreds of thousands of poor, mostly Indigenous women during his final four years in power.
An estimated 270,000 Peruvians, many of them Indigenous people who did not speak Spanish, underwent surgery to have their fallopian tubes tied as part of a family planning program implemented under Fujimori.
In 2021, a judge ruled that Fujimori could not, at the time, be prosecuted in the case for technical legal reasons.
Fujimori was divorced from Susana Higuchi, who had accused him of domestic violence and corruption, becoming a vocal critic of his regime.
She died in 2021.
Their daughter Keiko, who has run for president three times and lost all of them, said last year she would pardon her father if elected, but she was defeated by leftist Pedro Castillo — also since ousted and jailed at the same prison.
