Peru’s Constitutional Court has ordered the “immediate release” of former President Alberto Fujimori. This is evident from a court document published on Tuesday, Reuters news agency reports. Fujimori, 85, has been in custody since 2009 for human rights violations during his rule in the 1990s.
The controversial former president, who was in power from 1990 to 2000, is serving a 25-year prison sentence. In 2009, he was convicted of ordering the massacre of 25 people in 1991 and 1992, when his government was fighting Shining Path guerrillas.
Great division
On Christmas Eve in 2017, Fujimori was pardoned by then-President Pedro Pablo Kuczynski. The move sparked major divisions in Peru, where many see him as a dictator and others as a hero. In October 2018 he was sent back to prison.
Peru’s highest court has now ruled that an appeal to reinstate the 2017 pardon for the ailing Fujimori on humanitarian grounds was “well-founded”, the document said. The court also ruled in Fujimori’s favor in 2022, but that ruling was later stayed under pressure from the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACHR).
Furimori’s lawyer Elio Riera said Fujimori will likely be released on Wednesday. Human rights activists have criticized the ruling, which they say goes against calls from international organizations for justice for victims of state violence.
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