PERU/CHILE: Disgraced former President Alberto Fujimori has arrived in Peru to face charges

Disgraced former President Alberto Fujimori has arrived in Peru for the first time in seven years under armed guard to face charges of abusing human rights and stealing public money during his decade-long rule in the 1990s. Crowds gather outside the police base in Lima where he was transferred to show support for the man they call 'Chino'. Former Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori was flown out of Chile on Saturday (September 22) to face charges of human rights abuse and corruption seven years after fleeing Peru for Japan. Fujimori, who ruled Peru from 1990-2000, had once hoped to return to his home under his own volition to rekindle his political career. Instead, he left the Chilean capital Santiago aboard a Peruvian police airplane, bound for Lima to face charges he ordered two notorious massacres in the early 1990s during Peru's fight with the Maoist rebel group the Shining Path. A helicopter took Fujimori from his house outside Santiago to the airport, where he slowly boarded the small propeller-powered plane, stopping briefly to wave and smile to cameras before disappearing inside. "I go full heartedly and in good spirits," he said in Japanese before boarding a helicopter outside his home. The 69-year-old's forced departure from Chile comes nearly two years after he arrived unexpectedly in Santiago from Japan, the country of his parents' birth. He had spent five years in exile in Japan following the collapse of his government in 2000 and had hoped to launch a bid for the Peruvian presidency in 2006. But he was arrested on an international warrant and has spent the past two years fighting extradition. That battle ended on Friday (September 21) when Chile's Supreme Court ruled in favor of Peruvian prosecutors, unanimously accepting evidence linking Fujimori to the two massacres -- known as Barrios Altos and La Cantuta. Peruvian state TV showed a police plane carrying the ex-leader arriving from Chile at the southern Peruvian city of Tacna where the plane refuelled and headed to the capital Lima. Fujimori was then transferred to the Marco Puente police special forces base, which is to be his new home. Hundreds of his supporters gathered to await his arrival and scuffled with police ahead of his transfer to the base. Dozens of them tried to break into the aerial police base where Fujimori was due to arrive on Saturday afternoon. After trying to scale the walls, they were then confronted by heavily-armed police that they attacked with punches. A group of supporters also demonstrated and held a vigil outside the police base where he was being detained. Calling Fujumori by his popular nickname the 'Chino'-- literally Chinese man, supporters chanted: 'Brave 'Chino' your people are here'. Fujimori is a controversial figure who is credited by some with stabilizing the economy and accused by others of stealing public funds. For some Peruvians, he is the man who had the guts not only to stand up to the Shining Path but to send troops into the Japanese ambassador's residence in Lima in 1997 to end a four-month hostage crisis. Others view him as a corrupt despot who milked state funds for himself and cronies during his tenure. The Chilean court extradited Fujimori on half a dozen charges, including the notorious Barrios Altos and La Cantuta massacres in the early 1990s, when Peru was at war with the brutal Maoist rebel group the Shining Path. Fujimori had been in Santiago since November 2005, when he was detained in Chile on an international warrant after flying in from Japan, the country of his parents' birth. He had lived in Japan since his government collapsed. He was planning to revive his political career in Peru, where he served two terms as president and his party, Alliance for the Future, is influential in Congress. Fujimori left office months into his third term when his government collapsed under a huge corruption scandal. He faxed his resignation from Japan. Peru's ability to ensure a fair trial will be tested in a case that marks the first time a former head of state has been extradited to his own country to face human rights charges, analysts said.

ITN Source | September 23, 2007

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