Headlines, Human Rights, Latin America & the Caribbean

RIGHTS-PERU: Evidence Against Fujimori ‘Overwhelming’

Ángel Páez

LIMA, Sep 24 2007 (IPS) - There is “overwhelming” evidence that former Peruvian president Alberto Fujimori (1990-2000) was involved in death squad killings committed by army intelligence agents, chief prosecutor Pablo Sánchez told IPS.

Fujimori was flown back to Peru from Chile Saturday to face corruption and human rights charges, after the Chilean Supreme Court ruled in favour of extradition.

Friday’s Supreme Court decision was based on evidence gathered by prosecutors in Peru up to 2004, and handed over to the Chilean courts in the extradition request, pointed out Sánchez, who added that today there is even more proof than was presented at the time.

“Since that date, numerous relevant testimonies have been taken from former members of the special army unit that committed the Barrios Altos and La Cantuta massacres,” said the prosecutor.

In addition, “documents and statements were collected from military chiefs who responded to Fujimori’s orders,” he added. “In consequence, the Peruvian justice system has more abundant and more decisive elements to establish the former president’s guilt.”

Sánchez put together the case against Fujimori for his ties to the Colina Group, made up of Army Intelligence Service (SIE) agents accused of the 1991 murders of 15 people in the Lima neighbourhood of Barrios Altos and the 1992 killings of nine students and a professor from La Cantuta University.

Among the 57 people facing charges in connection with the Barrios Altos and La Cantuta killings is Fujimori’s former intelligence chief and eminence gris, Vladimiro Montesinos, and former army chief General Nicolás Hermoza, both of whom are in prison on other charges.

During the judicial process, several members of the Colina Group have sought to reduce their sentences in exchange for providing information to the courts on the death squad’s illegal activities, said Sánchez.

“Once it was verified, the information they supplied was key to finding out the truth about the incidents,” said the prosecutor.

On Nov. 3, 1991, the military commando burst into a fund-raising party in Barrios Altos, ordered the group to lie on the floor, and opened fire on them, killing 15, including an eight-year-old boy. And on Jul. 18, 1992, the same group abducted students and a professor from La Cantuta University, killed them and buried their bodies in secret graves.

In both incidents, the victims were suspected of belonging to the Maoist Sendero Luminoso (Shining Path) guerrillas.

“Outside of the judicial proceedings, other former members of the Colina Group took advantage of the law that offers legal benefits to people who committed crimes and who offer information that makes it possible to identify those responsible for the crimes,” said Sánchez.

These witnesses also provided key information on Fujimori’s involvement, he added.

The former president will face a separate trial for the two massacres, while the prosecution against the 57 other defendants, which began two years ago, continues its course.

“But the testimony, documentary evidence and other proof that emerges in the trial of the 57 defendants can be requested by the court that will try Fujimori,” said Sánchez.

Fujimori’s daughter Keiko demanded that her father be released on bail instead of being held in the special cell prepared for him at a police station on the outskirts of Lima. “My father deserves the treatment accorded to a former president,” the congresswoman argued.

But “the law is the same for everyone, and the former president will receive the treatment that is provided for by law,” said Sánchez.

The chief prosecutor said one of the most solid pieces of evidence against Fujimori in the human rights cases is the statement of former army chief Hermoza.

The general testified that Montesinos told him Fujimori was fully informed of the Barrios Altos and La Cantuta killings, and that he was closely involved in military and intelligence activities. In fact the former president even slept in the offices of the SIE and the National Intelligence Service (SIN), and governed from there, in 1991 and 1992.

In addition, a former member of the Colina Group, Marcos Flores, handed over to the judicial authorities a tape recording he made of a Jun. 27, 1992 speech by General Hermoza to 30 Colina Group members.

In the speech, Hermoza told the men that officials at the highest level of government were fully aware of their activities.

Sánchez said prosecutors had found evidence of Fujimori’s involvement in other human rights cases as well, and would submit them to the Chilean courts to request an expansion of the extradition approval.

The Chilean Supreme Court approved Fujimori’s extradition in seven of the 13 cases for which Peruvian prosecutors had presented evidence, including two human rights cases and five corruption cases. As a result, he can only be tried in Peru for the seven cases in question.

“Peru’s anticorruption authorities have experience in the cases of other defendants who were extradited and were found responsible for additional crimes during their trials,” said Sánchez, who explained that requests to expand their extradition approval to other cases were successful in those instances.

“It has been demonstrated by the testimony and documents gathered during the judicial investigation that Fujimori had an influence on the activities of the members of an organisation that was under his control,” he said, referring to the Colina Group.

Fujimori was arrested in late 2005 when he unexpectedly flew to Chile from Japan, where he lived after his second term in office collapsed in a huge corruption scandal in 2000. (The former president holds dual Peruvian-Japanese citizenship).