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Court orders Peru's Fujimori extradicted
2007-09-21
Chile's highest court on Friday ordered the extradition of former Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori to face trial for corruption and human rights violations, including accusations that he approved a death squad that gunned down 25 people. The ruling is final and cannot be appealed. Justice Alberto Chaigneau said it "was much easier than expected" for the court's criminal panel to approve the Peruvian request for extradition on two human rights charges and five corruption charges stemming from Fujimori's 1990-2000 rule. Chaigneau said six of the 13 charges for which Peru requested extradition were denied. At the condominium just north of Santiago where he has been under house arrest since June, Fujimori called the ruling "for me, an opportunity for return, because my goal during these last few years is to meet the people again." In an interview with Radio Programas of Peru, he admitted, "There were, of course, gross mistakes in the administration of my government." But, he added, "In the trials themselves, I will show that I acted in a correct manner." Chile plans to extradite the 69-year-old former ruler to Peru as soon as possible. "After years of evading justice, Fujimori will finally have to respond to the charges and evidence against him in the country he used to run like a mafia boss," said Jose Miguel Vivanco, Americas director for Human Rights Watch. Fujimori has repeatedly denied the charges, calling them politically motivated, but his Chilean lawyer, Gabriel Zaliasnik, said Fujimori would accept the decision. "We are not planning to seek any delays or attempt any kind of maneuvers," Zaliasnik said. Fujimori was highly popular in the early years of his administration, largely crushing a violent guerrilla movement and overseeing a flourishing economy, but an increasing drift toward authoritarianism and evidence of corruption eventually turned many Peruvians against him. He still has many followers in Peru, where his daughter Keiko was elected to congress last year with the largest number of votes. According to their extradition treaty, Chile now has three months to send Fujimori back, but there could be a delay while Peru prepares a prison facility for him. The human rights cases against Fujimori include the 1993 death-squad slayings of nine students and a professor at La Cantuta University, and the 1991 killings of 15 people at a party in Barrios Altos, a working-class neighborhood of Lima. The corruption charges involve alleged payoffs to lawmakers and to news media, illegal phone tapping and misuse of $15 million in government funds. When Fujimori's former spy chief, Vladimiro Montesinos, was grabbed in Venezuela in June 2001, he was sent back within days and jailed in a high-security naval prison where Abimael Guzman and other top leaders of the Shining Path rebel movement were being held. But as a political leader and a former head of state, Fujimori will apparently be held in a special facility inside a regular prison pending his trial, which could easily last more than a year. Montesinos has been on trial for six years on multiple charges. Peruvian prosecutors are seeking 30 years in prison for Fujimori for each human rights charge and the corruption charges carry 10-year sentences. Prison terms run concurrently under Peruvian law. Human Rights Watch said Chile's decision is part of a global trend that began when Britain ruled in 1999 that former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet could be extradited to Spain to face torture charges. "This decision is a remarkable example of the role that domestic institutions of justice can play in enforcing international standards and furthering accountability, even in highly sensitive cases," Vivanco said in Santiago. "It will now be up to Peru's courts to show they are up to the task of trying Fujimori and guaranteeing him a fair trial." Peru's foreign minister, Jose Garcia Belaunde, said the legal process was working, adding: "Now, we have to bring him to Lima." In Lima, Fujimori's allies were already preparing for his arrival. Martha Chavez, who ran as his party's presidential candidate in 2006, noted that the Chilean court did not rule on Fujimori's guilt. "An extradition process does not end by saying whether a person is guilty or innocent, just that there are elements to justify a trial," she said. Fujimori arrived in Chile in November 2005 in a surprise ending to his five-year exile in Japan, where he had fled as his government collapsed in scandal. The Peruvian government quickly requested his extradition. The former president, who holds both Peruvian and Japanese citizenship, also ran unsuccessfully for the Japanese Senate. __ Associated Press writers Monte Hayes and Edison Lopez in Lima, Peru, contributed to this report.
Great poet's grave stokes Civil War dispute (2008-09-24)Waterboarding should be prosecuted as torture: U.N. (2008-02-09)Court orders Peru's Fujimori extradicted (2007-09-21)Anti-laundering compliance costs mount (2007-07-08)Pinochet divides Chile, even at funeral (2006-12-12)
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