A pardon request for jailed ex-President Alberto Fujimori will be filed following the two-day summit of South American and Arab political and business leaders being held in Lima.
The ASPA summit, which includes delegations from more than 30 countries, is scheduled to wrap up on Tuesday.
Fujimori’s daughter, ex-presidential candidate Keiko Fujimori, announced on Friday plans to request a humanitarian pardon for her father, who is serving 25 years in jail in connection to the murder of some 25 people during his administration in the 1990s. Keiko said her father’s health has deteriorated significantly as a result of a cancer that has been detected on his tongue.
“The lawyers of the ex president are going to include the document certificates from the National Institute of Neoplastic Diseases to support what is a humanitarian pardon,” said Alejandro Aguinaga, a spokesman for the pro-Fujimori Fuerza 2011 party, which is led by Keiko. “When the ASPA ends and in the next few days it will be presented,” he said, according to daily El Comercio. Earlier this year, the INEN institute had denied that the tumor was cancerous.
Congresswoman Martha Chavez of the Fuerza 2011 party, for Fujimori, was a key figure during Fujimori’s administration and his staunch supporter, but said that Fujimori does not have cancer.
Aguinaga, a minister of Health during the Fujimori administration, was also previously Fujimori’s doctor.
Many opposition politicians and human rights activists have come out against a possible pardon, on the basic premise that Fujimori’s illness is not life-threatening.
Javier Diez Canseco, a prominent left-wing lawmaker, pointed out that Fujimori has never apologized for his crimes and should therefore not be granted the pardon.
Alberto Fujimori is serving a 25-year-sentence for human rights abuses,specifically early in his administration, in 1991 and 1992 — for authorizing the Colina death squad killings in the Barrios Altos (15 dead in a family courtyard) and La Cantuta (a university professor and nine students murdered), as well as the kidnapping of businessman Samuel Dyer and journalist Gustavo Gorriti, who were held in the basement of the headquarters of the joint chiefs of staff during Fujimori’s self-coup in 1992.
His daughter Keiko’s presidential campaign in 2011 was primarily based on obtaining his release from prison, and lost by a narrow margin to Ollanta Humala.
