- Title: PERU: Former President Alberto Fujimori undergoes new surgery
- Date: 18th February 2010
- Summary: LIMA, PERU (FEBRUARY 17, 2010) (ORIGINALLY 4:3) (REUTERS) EXTERIOR OF HOSPITAL WHERE FORMER PERUVIAN PRESIDENT ALBERTO FUJIMORI UNDERWENT SURGERY REPORTERS WAITING OUTSIDE HOSPITAL FUJIMORI'S SON KENYI WALKING INTO NEWS CONFERENCE ROOM REPORTERS (SOUNDBITE) (Spanish) FORMER PERUVIAN PRESIDENT ALBERTO FUJIMORI'S SON KENYI, SAYING: "The lesion measures four millimetres but a total of four centimetres has been removed to reduce the risks the lesion could reappear. Doctor Sanchez, who operated on him, has told me he is no longer at risk and he now has to rest and remain under constant surveillance." REPORTERS (SOUNDBITE) (Spanish) FORMER PERUVIAN PRESIDENT ALBERTO FUJIMORI'S SON KENYI, SAYING: "We are more united than ever before. This will not bring "the Chinese" (Fujimori's nickname) down. On the contrary, we'll push ahead. We'll continue fighting." MORE OF REPORTERS KENYI EXITS ROOM
- Embargoed: 5th March 2010 12:00
- Keywords:
- Location: Peru
- Country: Peru
- Topics: Crime / Law Enforcement,Domestic Politics
- Reuters ID: LVADVXDEHF5ME0M6M341NNZTSCWD
- Story Text: Doctors operated on a lesion inside former Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori's mouth, the second operation in the same area in less than two years, to determine whether the growth could become cancerous.
The operation lasted 40 minutes and doctor's from a hospital specialising in cancer removed a lesion measuring four centimetres from his mouth. Fujimori will recover in hospital until Thursday (February 18).
"The lesion measures four millimetres but a total of four centimetres has been removed to reduce the risks the lesion could reappear. Doctor Sanchez, who operated on him, has told me he is no longer at risk and he now has to rest and remain under constant surveillance," said Fujimori's son, Kenyi Fujimori, after the operation in Lima hospital.
Kenyi Fujimori added the results of the studies carried out on the lesion would be known at a later date.
"We are more united than ever before. This will not bring "the Chinese" (Fujimori's nickname) down. On the contrary, we'll push ahead. We'll continue fighting," he added.
Fujimori, who was convicted of human rights crimes and sentenced to 25 years in prison, returned to hospital on Tuesday (February 16) after the operation was postponed in January because Fujimori had progressed favorably, according to his relatives.
The former President has been confined to prison at a police base since September 2007, after he was extradited from China accused of ordering a military death squad to carry out two massacres that killed 25 people during his 1990-2000 rule, when he was battling communist guerrillas. Nearly 70,000 people died in two decades of conflict in the Andean country.
In June and July 2008, Fujimori underwent surgeries to remove a lesion in his mouth, cancer was then ruled out. That same year in September, doctors detected a tumor in his pancreas but doctors determined it was not malignant.
Fujimori's popularity soared when he defeated the brutal Shining Path guerrillas, tamed economic chaos and freed dozens of hostages taken by the Tupac Amaru insurgency during a siege at the Japanese ambassador's house in Lima.
But a corruption scandal involving his spy chief, Vladimiro Montesinos, sank his government in 2000. Fujimori fled to exile in Japan, the country where his parents were born. He was later arrested in Chile and extradited to Peru, where he often snoozed through testimony and took off his socks. - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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