Peru’s Supreme Court has overturned a medical pardon for former President Alberto Fujimori and ordered the strongman be returned to jail to serve out a long sentence for human rights abuses.
Former president Pedro Pablo Kuczynski pardoned Fujimori on humanitarian grounds last Christmas Eve in what was widely seen as an attempt to stave off impeachment by courting favour with Fujimori’s allies in Congress.
Mr Kuczynski resigned three months later.
Almost from the outset, the ruling was slammed by human rights groups as a “pact of impunity”, while the Inter-American Court on Human Rights had also demanded that Peru review its legality.
The presiding magistrate in the case ordered the 80-year-old Fujimori be captured immediately so he can serve out the remaining 14 years of a 25-year sentence for his role in the killing of several civilians, including an eight-year-old boy, during raids by an anti-communist army unit created by his government.
Two police officers entered the rented mansion in Lima where Fujimori has been living since his release to verify his whereabouts.
His lawyer said he would abide by the ruling while appealing against the decision.
“Today is one of the saddest days in my life,” a weeping Keiko Fujimori, the former president’s daughter and current leader of the conservative Popular Force party, told a group of journalists outside her father’s residence.
Fujimori, who governed from 1990 to 2000, remains a polarising figure in Peru.
A former mathematics professor, Fujimori was a political outsider when he emerged from obscurity to win Peru’s 1990 presidential election over writer Mario Vargas Llosa.
Peru was being ravaged by runaway inflation and guerrilla violence when he took office.
He quickly rebuilt the economy with mass privatisations of state industries.
Defeating the fanatical Shining Path rebels took longer but his fight won him broad-based support.
His presidency collapsed just as dramatically as his rise to power.
Fujimori went to Japan, his parents’ homeland, and famously sent in his resignation by fax.
Five years later, he stunned supporters and enemies alike when he flew to neighbouring Chile, where he was arrested and extradited to Peru.
Fujimori’s goal was to run for Peru’s presidency again in 2006, but instead he went to trial.
Mr Kuczynski said he was pardoning Fujimori because he suffered a heart condition made worse by prison conditions.
