07.12.2023, Lima.
The former president-dictator of Peru Alberto Fujimori was released from the Barbadillo prison at the age of 85 by the decision of the constitutional court. The newspaper La República wrote on December 6.
Alberto Fujimori was serving a 25-year sentence in the Barbadillo penal colony, located in the Ata district, after being found guilty of mediating massacres in La Cantuta and Barrios Altos during his presidency. On December 6, he left the penitentiary under a constitutional court order due to his advanced age and health.
Keiko Fujimori, daughter of the former president and leader of the right-wing Fuerza Popular (Popular Force) party, noted that her father calmly and joyfully welcomed the constitutional court ruling that allowed his release.
“I spoke to my father. He has calmly but also joyfully accepted this second ruling of the constitutional court. We await the next steps with caution and great faith,” she said before his release.
The day before, three judges of Peru’s highest constitutional court agreed to order Peru’s National Penitentiary Institute and the management of the Barbadillo prison to immediately release Fujimori, who is serving a sentence for crimes against humanity, given his advanced age and poor health.
The decision to release Fujimori has sparked a storm of outrage in Peru because it overturns a ruling by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACHR). In 2022, the IACHR urged Lima to keep the former dictator behind bars to guarantee the right of access to justice for the victims of the bloody Barrios Altos and La Cantuta massacres.
This view was echoed on December 5 by the human rights organization Human Rights Watch, which, through its Americas Division Director Juanita Goebertus, called to remember that “releasing Alberto Fujimori would violate the rulings of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights.” She warned that such sentences are subject to mandatory enforcement. “The penitentiary institution, which reports to the Ministry of Justice, should not release him,” the head of the organization stressed.
Fujimorist leader Alberto Fujimori is known for becoming a right-wing dictator president in the 1990s, creating an authoritarian regime in which death squads fought leftist rebels, whom the current Peruvian government calls “terrorists,” and hundreds of thousands of native Peruvians were subjected to forced sterilization. In 2009, Fujimori was found guilty of human rights violations and sentenced to 25 years in prison. He is serving his sentence in Lima’s Barbadillo prison. His Fuerza Popular party is now led by his daughter and follower Keiko Fujimori.
Source: Rossa Primavera News Agency
