Explanations justifying the changes made to make former president Alberto Fujimori’s jail regime more flexible “lack of technical grounds” and must be examined, said Peru Attorney General Gladys Echaiz Tuesday.
“I belive that this issue must be examined,” Echaiz told CPN Radio. “They have given explanations and justifications about the decision (to make Fujimori’s jail regime more flexible) that lack of grounds.”
On Sunday, Peru President Alan García denied allegations that his government engineered Fujimori’s prison privileges, including quasi unrestricted visits by family and friends and greater access to public phones, in exchange of 13 “Fujimorista” bloc votes that allowed his ruling Aprista party to retain control over Congress.
Only the “law and regulations that exist” have been applied and justify making Fujimori’s detention more flexible, Garcia contended. And the decision was taken last June, he added.
The changes are related to a technical decision, argued Peru Justice Minister Rosario Fernández, and have nothing to do with the National Penetentiary Institute, the Justice Department, or an Apra-Fujimorista pact.
And, she argued, Fujimori’s odd visitors, including an esoteric, a Santería practionner, an art professors, and the Uruguayan musical group “Los Iracundos” called on the ex-leader at a time when the new, more flexible regime had already come into force.
But, according to daily Peru21, the country’s penitentiary law was interpreted in a “subjective rather than technical” manner to favor Fujimori.
Article 11-B, contained in legislative decree N°984, states that “an inmate’s ties to a criminal organization and his inmate profile evaluation build the basis for his placement in a special jail regime,” chracterized by a more severe and restricted detention.
Fujimori should be detained in strict maximum security conditions, reported Peru21, because “he is on trial for being the leader of a criminal organization called Colina, and this organization kidnapped, killed and cremated people.”
The Colina group killed 15 people in Lima’s Barrios Altos district in 1991 and nine students and a professor at La Cantuta University in 1992 who were suspected of collaborating with the Shining Path insurgency. Fujimori is accused of sanctioning the group’s activities. He faces 30 years in prison if convicted.
Last year, INPE’s Penitentiary Treatment Organization evaluated Fujimori and determined that he should be detained in a special regime because he deliberately escaped from justice. Fujimori fled Peru in 2000 to his ancestral homeland, Japan, where he was shielded from extradition by his dual Japanese citizenship, and faxed his resignation to Peru’s Congress, He was arrested in Chile in November 2005.
“It is not our duty to give our opinion on issues of adminstrative law, the law assigns this competence only to the INPE (National Penetentiary Institute),” said Echaiz in comments to RPP. “It has been said, that for a given reason, the jail regime was changed, well, I know that. If we speak of illicit association to commit a crime, this would correspond to a determined jail regime, but I would say that what (Fujimori) is being accused of is much more serious, and, at the least, is punishable by much stricter sentences.”
