PERU-FUJIMORI/HEARING A jailed Fujimori requests Peru overturn his conviction

Record ID: 147980

  • Title: PERU-FUJIMORI/HEARING A jailed Fujimori requests Peru overturn his conviction
  • Date: 8th July 2015
  • Summary: LIMA, PERU (JULY 08, 2015) (REUTERS) EXTERIOR OF POLICE BASE WHERE FORMER PERUVIAN PRESIDENT, ALBERTO FUJIMORI, IS JAILED FUJIMORI ENTERING HEARING WITH HIS LAWYER, WILLIAM PACO (SOUNDBITE) (Spanish) FORMER PERUVIAN PRESIDENT, ALBERTO FUJIMORI, SAYING: "I've been imprisoned for eight years now and I will remain like this until I am 95-years-old." (SOUNDBITE) (Spanish) FORM
  • Embargoed: 23rd July 2015 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Peru
  • Country: Peru
  • Topics: General
  • Reuters ID: LVA4DS6NS66U63UN9RYSZGJSZXQD
  • Aspect Ratio: 16:9
  • Story Text: Peru's jailed former president, Alberto Fujimori, petitioned a judge on Wednesday (July 8) to overturn a 25-year prison sentence he is serving and called for a retrial by an "impartial court."
    In 2009, Fujimori was sentenced to 25 years for ordering death squads to carry out massacres that killed 25 people during a crackdown on leftist insurgents during his 1990 - 2000 term.
    But the former president claims the case surrounding the Barrios Altos and La Cantuta massacres should be thrown out and retried because it was later revealed that during the 2008 trial, the judge presiding over the case, Cesar San Martin, had sent several e-mails regarding the trial to at least two lawyers while it was being heard.
    Fujimori holds this is evidence the judge was not impartial.
    "I've been imprisoned for eight years now and I will remain like this until I am 95-years-old," Fujimori, who is serving his sentence at a police base in Lima, said during a hearing Wednesday.
    "I was the president who oversaw peacemaking which many thought, a peace that many people thought was impossible to reach. I took on this role," he said referring to the conflict between the state and the Shining Path rebel group that claimed some 70,000 lives in the 1980s and 90s.
    "I ask the judge to declare null, null and without any effect, the sentence given by the court presided over by (judge) doctor (Cesar) San Martin and the sentence authorized by the appellate body. And furthermore, that a new trial be set; a new trial by an impartial court," he added.
    Fujimori holds that San Martin's emails over the case also violated his presumed innocence.
    Fujimori's daughter, Keiko Fujimori, and son, Kenji Fujimori, both members of congress, were present at the hearing.
    Keiko, who has run for president herself, explained that the legal case.
    "He has filed a case, a habeas corpus. This is the legal path the constitution allows us," Keiko Fujimori said.
    Fujimori, who has been imprisoned since 2007, has also been convicted of corruption and abuse of power during his time as president.
    He has repeatedly said that his incarceration is tantamount to a slow death behind bars.
    Fujimori's doctors have said he is suffering from depression and a cancerous growth on his tongue may reappear.
  • Copyright Holder: REUTERS
  • Copyright Notice: (c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2015. Open For Restrictions - http://about.reuters.com/fulllegal.asp
  • Usage Terms/Restrictions: None
Register