Massacre charges filed against Peru’s ex-President
Peru’s attorney general has filed homicide charges against disgraced ex-President Alberto Fujimori, linking him to two massacres by paramilitary death squads in the early 1990s, a statement said.
Fujimori is in exile in Japan and Peru hopes that the charges will prompt the Asian nation to extradite him.
Prosecutors alleged yesterday that the now-exiled Fujimori ‘‘co-authored’’ the killings and ‘‘knew in detail the operations’’ of the death squad known as the Colina group, the attorney general’s office statement said.
The Colina group is accused of gunning down 15 people in 1991 during a barbecue at a Lima tenement building. Group members were also linked to the kidnapping and murder of nine students and a professor at La Cantuta University in 1992.
Prosecutors are also charging that Fujimori had knowledge of the killing of former intelligence agent Mariela Barreto, whose dismembered and decapitated body was found in March 1997, the statement said.
Congress paved the way for the charges on August 27 by lifting the constitutional immunity of Fujimori, who has been in his parents’ native Japan since November when his 10-year rule collapsed in a growing corruption scandal.
The homicide and forced disappearance charges, which Peruvian officials say constitute crimes against humanity, are the most serious to date against Fujimori.
Fujimori also faces charges of abandonment of office and dereliction of duty, which carry a maximum two-year prison sentence. He denies any wrongdoing and claims he is the subject of ‘‘vulgar political persecution’’ in Peru.
Japan announced Fujimori was entitled to citizenship shortly after he arrived there, and Japanese law prohibits the extradition of its citizens.
Although Peru hopes the new charges will persuade Japan to extradite him, a Japanese Foreign Ministry spokesman has reiterated the Government’s opposition to such a move.
Peru’s Justice Minister Fernando Olivera called Japan’s position ‘‘unacceptable’’ and said his government is preparing for a ‘‘judicial battle’’ to secure Fujimori’s extradition to Peru.
Under its own laws, Peru cannot make an extradition request until a Supreme Court judge formally accepts the charges against Fujimori and opens investigative proceedings. The court has 15 days to do that.
In his ‘From Tokyo’ website, which he launched in July to defend himself, Fujimori has brushed off the homicide charges for lacking proof and credible witnesses.
Addressing his accusers, Fujimori said, ‘‘The best thing for me is that you continue talking and accusing ... That’s how the proof of political persecution will continue to grow.’’
