Photo: LUKA GONZALES / Getty Images
The Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACHR) ruled this Friday against the ruling of the Constitutional Court of Peru that ordered the release of former Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori, imprisoned since 2009 for human rights violations.
In a resolution dated April 7, the Court ruled that the ruling of the Peruvian Constitutional Court fails to comply with the provisions on the execution of Fujimori’s sentence as the direct perpetrator of the Barrios Altos and La Cantuta massacres.
The resolution of the Inter-American Court closes for the moment the long legal and political battle for the freedom of Fujimori, which began in 2017 when former president Pedro Pablo Kuzcynski granted him a humanitarian pardon for health reasons when he needed the votes of the caucus fujimorista to survive a motion to dismiss him presented in Congress.
Resolution of the @CorteIDH Request for Provisional Measures and Monitoring Compliance with Judgment in the Barrios Altos Case and the La Cantuta v. Peru Case 🇵🇪, April 7, 2018.
👩🏿💻More information here: https://t.co /CuFwkogcAO#147PeriodoCorteIDH pic.twitter. com/qhEB4BDjVl
— Inter-American Court of Human Rights (@CorteIDH) April 8, 2022
In 2017 the Inter-American Court urged the Peruvian justice to review the decision to pardon Fujimori in the face of reports of irregularities and complaints from the victims of his crimes, who complained that the pardon was equivalent to impunity. Later, the Supreme Court of Peru annulled the presidential pardon.
But the 17 in March of this year, the Constitutional Court agreed to restore the pardon and order the Fujimori’s release, based on procedural defects in the process before the Supreme Court, in which, in his opinion, the alleged irregularities in the processing of Kuzcynski’s pardon had not been proven.
After the ruling of the Constitutional Court, the victims appealed to the Inter-American Court, which has once again ruled against the pardon and assures that the highest Peruvian court did not adjust its resolution to the obligations to prosecute and punish crimes against humanity that the Inter-American Charter of Human Rights establishes for Peru and the rest of the signatory states.
With 83 years, Fujimori remains a figure very controversial in Peru. He was president between 1990 and 2000, years in which he established an authoritarian government in the country. His lawyers and followers assure that his age and his health problems justify his release from prison. Some of his main critics have also advocated granting him prison benefits, as journalist Gustavo Gorriti did in a recent interview on BBC Mundo.
His victims and his detractors affirm, instead, that he has not paid the reparations to which he was sentenced nor has he asked for forgiveness for his crimes. They also maintain that it has not been proven that his health problems cannot be properly treated in prison.
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